It's not so simple. Florence and her family are not to be discounted. Her brother Theodore, committed to building railways and digging tunnels, speaks his piece in Chapter XXVI, "The Man who dusted his Boots with his Handkerchief." (Remember that Mr. Puddicombe, arbiter of proper behavior to his friend Dr. Wortle in Dr. Wortle's School, advised his friend, "When I am taking a walk through the fields and get one of my feet deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me rather than make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as though nothing had happened. The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged and scraped, is more palpably dirt than the honest mud.") One of the great questions that arose in the Victorian world was how to identify a gentleman, and although Trollope doesn't spell it out in so many words, it may be taken from this description, and from the drawings of this scene in two different editions, that dusting one's boots is a cardinal sign that one is not a gentleman.
But, gentleman or not, Theodore Burton is one of the two in the story who prove themselves to be men of worth. When Harry is dithering about which woman he will marry (both Lady Ongar and Florence Burton appear willing to accept him), Theodore Burton, who has employed Harry in the engineering office, writes him a letter acknowledging Harry's absence from the office and urging him to come for an interview. After the formalities, Burton comes directly to the point: "Come, Harry, let me tell you all at once like an honest man. I hate subterfuges and secrets. A report has reached the old people at home—not Florence, mind—that you are untrue to Florence, and are passing your time with that lady who is the sister of your cousin's wife." He goes on to urge him to return to Florence and to the Burton family fold. "And this from the man who had dusted his boots with his pocket handkerchief, and whom Harry had regarded as being on that account hardly fit to be his friend!"
The other humble man who proves his worth is Mr. Samuel Saul, the curate for Harry's father Mr. Clavering, a clergyman not given to work of any sort. Mr. Saul is introduced as a serious, conscientious young man who basically does all the work. (This is a mark against any claim that Mr. Saul may have to being a gentlemen. Gentlemen don't work.) Mrs. Clavering later reflects that her son Harry "would never excel greatly in any drudgery that would be necessary for the making of money."
But the humble Mr. Saul aspires to the hand of Harry's sister Fanny. No one in Fanny's family—her father the rector, her mother, or her brother Harry—could even consider such a thing; but Fanny, who initially acknowledges the impossibility of his suit, eventually does begin to consider it, and to consider that the only thing keeping them from being married is that his income as a curate is woefully inadequate. And Fanny rejects any suggestion that Mr. Saul is not a gentleman.
His initial proposal introduces us to him. Trollope specialized in proposals; there seem to be at least two or three in every book. And this one, which occurs in the rain, makes the reader thankful for a warm dry spot where he can only read about the rain. He persists with his statement of purpose in spite of the downpour, and she splashes herself as she forbids him to speak further. "She had her own ideas as to what was loveable in men, and the eager curate, splashing through the rain by her side, by no means came up to her standard of excellence."
But Mr. Saul's powers were not to be underestimated. He later makes another attempt, in which the author dissects Mr. Saul's victory. Fanny does not declare that she does not love him. Mr. Saul's gamesmanship requires a bit of leisurely explanation:
At this moment she forgot that in order to put herself on perfectly firm ground, she should have gone back to the first hypothesis, and assured him that she did not feel any such regard for him. Mr. Saul, whose intellect was more acute, took advantage of her here, and chose to believe that that matter of her affection was now conceded to him. He knew what he was doing well, and is open to a charge of some jesuitry. "Mr. Saul," said Fanny, with grave prudence, "it cannot be right for people to marry when they have nothing to live upon." When she had shown him so plainly that she had no other piece left on the board to play than this, the game may be said to have been won on his side.
Mr. Saul continued to play his hand bravely in his interview with Mr. Clavering, whose strongest card was that Mr. Saul, though a gentleman, was not in his class. And of course the nuances of class were to be of no avail in England in coming decades. Some would persist, but many of these nuances, which were relied upon by those such as Mr. Clavering, who did not work, would fall to the energy of such men as Mr. Burton and Mr. Saul, who did work. In this case, Mr. Clavering bravely declared that Mr. Saul would have to give up his pretensions for Fanny's hand, or leave the parish—which would have left Mr. Clavering without the services of someone to do his work for him. And Mr. Saul called his bluff, declaring that he would leave the parish rather than renounce his claim for Fanny's hand.
As it turned out, all parties stood their ground, and Fanny assumed the role of "a broken-hearted young lady." But this is fairy tale as well as soap opera, and all tears are wiped away in a series of events that open up the position of rector of the parish to the steadfast Mr. Saul, thus removing the last excuse the family had for opposing the union—somewhat to the sacrifice of "cakes and ale in the parish," to Mr. Clavering's regret.
Other less worthy persons claim the reader's attention, two of whom, Archie Clavering and Captain Boodle, provide a welcome bit of comic relief when Mr. Boodle, habitué of the racecourses and "fast friend" of Captain Archie Clavering, the ne'er do well brother of Sir Hugh Clavering, advises Archie about how to advance his courtship of Lady Ongar. Archie knows deep down that he has no chance. "In some inexplicable manner he put himself into the scales and weighed himself, and discovered his own weight with fair accuracy. And he put her into the scales, and he found that she was much the heavier of the two." But Boodle knows too much about horses to allow his friend to shortchange himself in his suit, comparing courtship to riding a trained mare: "I always choose that she shall know that I'm there." Use the spurs if you have to.