"You know her, then, Major Grantly? By-the-by, of course you do, as you were staying with her at Framley."
"Yes, I know her."
"What is to become of her? I'm going your way. You might as well get into the carriage, and I'll drive you home. If he is sent to prison,—and they say he must be sent to prison,—what is to become of them?" Then Major Grantly did get into the carriage, and, before he got out again, he had told Mrs. Thorne the whole story of his love.
She listened to him with the closest attention; only interrupting him now and then with little words, intended to signify her approval. He, as he told his tale, did not look her in the face, but sat with his eyes fixed upon her muff. "And now," he said, glancing up at her almost for the first time as he finished his speech, "and now, Mrs. Thorne, what am I to do?"
"Marry her, of course," said she, raising her hand aloft and bringing it down heavily upon his knee as she gave her decisive reply.
"H—sh—h," he exclaimed, looking back in dismay towards the servants.
"Oh, they never hear anything up there. They're thinking about the last pot of porter they had, or the next they're to get. Deary me, I am so glad! Of course you'll marry her."
"You forget my father."
"No, I don't. What has a father to do with it? You're old enough to please yourself without asking your father. Besides, Lord bless me, the archdeacon isn't the man to bear malice. He'll storm and threaten and stop the supplies for a month or so. Then he'll double them, and take your wife to his bosom, and kiss her and bless her, and all that kind of thing. We all know what parental wrath means in such cases as that."
"But my sister—"