England, a pious, hard-working country gentleman, whom we have known
among us by his good works for years, suddenly turn thief, and pilfer a
few pounds! It is not possible, Major Grantly. And the father of such a
daughter, too! It is not possible. It may do for men of business to
think so, lawyers and such like, who are obliged to think in accordance
with the evidence, as they call it; but to my mind the idea is
monstrous. I don't know how he got it, and I don't care; but I'm quite
sure he did not steal it. Whoever heard of anybody becoming so base as
that all at once?'

The major was startled by her eloquence, and by the indignant tone of
voice in which it was expressed. It seemed to tell him that she would
give him no sympathy in that which he had come to say to her, and to
upbraid him already in that he was not prepared to do the magnificent
thing of which he had thought when he had been building his castles in
the air. Why should he not do the magnificent thing? Miss Prettyman's
eloquence was so strong that it half convinced him that the Barchester
Club and Mr Walker had come to a wrong conclusion after all.

'And how does Miss Crawley bear it?' he asked, desirous of postponing
for a while any declaration of his own purpose.

'She is very unhappy, of course. Not that she thinks evil of her
father.'

'Of course she does not think him guilty.'

'Nobody thinks him so in this house, Major Grantly,' said the little
woman, very imperiously. 'But Grace is, naturally enough, very
sad;--very sad indeed. I do not think I can ask you to see her today.'