Major Grantly was as intimately acquainted with Miss Anne Prettyman as a man under thirty may well be with a lady nearer fifty than forty, who is not specially connected with him by any family tie; but of Miss Prettyman he knew personally very much less.  Miss Prettyman, as has before been said, did not go out, and was therefore not common to the eyes of the Silverbridgians.  She did occasionally see her friends in her own house, and Grace Crawley’s lover, as the major had come to be called, had been there on more than one occasion; but of real personal intimacy between them there had hitherto existed none.  He might have spoken, perhaps a dozen words to her in his life.  He had now more than a dozen to speak to her, but he hardly knew how to commence them.

She had got up and curtseyed, and had then taken his hand and asked him to sit down.  ‘My sister tells me that you want to see me,’ she said in her softest, mildest voice.

’I do, Miss Prettyman.  I want to speak to you about a matter that troubles me very much—­very much indeed.’

‘Anything that I can do, Major Grantly—­’

’Thank you, yes.  I know that you are very good, or I should not have ventured to come and see you.  Indeed I shouldn’t trouble you now, of course, if it was only about myself.  I know very well what a great friend you are to Miss Crawley.’

‘Yes, I am.  We love Grace dearly here.’

‘So do I,’ said the major bluntly; ‘I love her dearly, too.’  Then he paused, as though he thought that Miss Prettyman ought to take up the speech.  But Miss Prettyman seemed to think quite differently, and he was obliged to go on.  ’I don’t know whether you have ever heard about it or noticed it, or—­or—­or—­’ He felt that he was very awkward, and he blushed.  Major as he was, he blushed as he sat before the woman, trying to tell his story, but not knowing how to tell it.  ’The truth is, Miss Prettyman, I have done all but ask her to be my wife, and now has come this terrible affair about her father.’

‘It is a terrible affair, Major Grantly; very terrible.’

‘By Jove, you may say that!’

‘Of course, Mr Crawley is as innocent in the matter as you or I are.’

‘You think so, Miss Prettyman?’

’Think so!  I feel sure of it.  What; a clergyman of the Church of 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?’