It's always easy for women to look well when they're rich." How would Grace Crawley look, then, who was poor as poverty itself, and who should remain poor, if his son was fool enough to marry her?
That was the train of thought which ran through the archdeacon's mind.

"I do not think much of riches," said he, "but it is always well that a gentleman's wife or a gentleman's daughter should have a sufficiency to maintain her position in life." "You may say the same, sir, of everybody's wife and everybody's daughter." "You know what I mean, Henry." "I am not quite sure that I do, sir." "Perhaps I had better speak out at once.

A rumour has reached your mother and me, which we don't believe for a moment, but which, nevertheless, makes us unhappy even as a report.

They say that there is a young woman living in Silverbridge to whom you are becoming attached." "Is there any reason why I should not become attached to a young woman in Silverbridge ?--though I hope any young woman to whom I may become attached will be worthy at any rate of being called a young lady." "I hope so, Henry; I hope so.

I do hope so." "So much I will promise, sir; but I will promise nothing more." The archdeacon looked across into his son's face, and his heart sank within him.