CHAPTER VI.
GRACE CRAWLEY.
It has already been said that Grace Crawley was at this time living with the two Miss Prettymans, who kept a girls' school at Silverbridge.

Two more benignant ladies than the Miss Prettymans never presided over such an establishment.

The younger was fat, and fresh, and fair, and seemed to be always running over with the milk of human kindness.

The other was very thin and very small, and somewhat afflicted with bad health;--was weak, too, in the eyes, and subject to racking headaches, so that it was considered generally that she was unable to take much active part in the education of the pupils.

But it was considered as generally that she did all the thinking, that she knew more than any other woman in Barsetshire, and that all the Prettyman schemes for education emanated from her mind.
It was said, too, by those who knew them best, that her sister's good-nature was as nothing to hers; that she was the most charitable, the most loving, and the most conscientious of schoolmistresses.
This was Miss Annabella Prettyman, the elder; and perhaps it may be inferred that some portion of her great character for virtue may have been due to the fact that nobody ever saw her out of her own house.
She could not even go to church, because the open air brought on neuralgia.