“I hope I shall,” said she.
“But always think most about the latter, my dear. Think about the happiness of those around you, and your own will come without thinking. You understand that; do you not?”
“Oh, yes, I understand,” she said.
As they were speaking Mr. Harding still held her hand, but Griselda left it with him unwillingly, and therefore ungraciously, looking as though she were dragging it from him.
“And Grizzy—I believe it is quite as easy for a rich countess to be happy, as for a dairymaid—”
Griselda gave her head a little chuck which was produced by two different operations of her mind. The first was a reflection that her grandpapa was robbing her of her rank. She was to be a rich marchioness. And the second was a feeling of anger at the old man for comparing her lot to that of a dairymaid.
“Quite as easy, I believe,” continued he; “though others will tell you that it is not so. But with the countess as with the dairymaid, it must depend on the woman herself. Being a countess—that fact alone won’t make you happy.”
“Lord Dumbello at present is only a viscount,” said Griselda. “There is no earl’s title in the family.”
“Oh! I did not know,” said Mr. Harding, relinquishing his granddaughter’s hand; and, after that, he troubled her with no further advice.
Both Mrs. Proudie and the bishop had called at Plumstead since Mrs. Grantly had come back from London, and the ladies from Plumstead, of course, returned the visit. It was natural that the Grantlys and Proudies should hate each other. They were essentially church people, and their views on all church matters were antagonistic. They had been compelled to fight for supremacy in the diocese, and neither family had so conquered the other as to have become capable of magnanimity and good-humour. They did hate each other, and this hatred had, at one time, almost produced an absolute disseverance of even the courtesies which are so necessary between a bishop and his clergy. But the bitterness of this rancour had been overcome, and the ladies of the families had continued on visiting terms.