And the doing of anything had come to be very difficult through a certain indiscretion on Lord Lufton's part.

Lord Lufton had offered assistance, pecuniary assistance, to Mr.Crawley, which Mr.Crawley had rejected with outspoken anger.

What was Lord Lufton to him that his lordship should dare to come to him with his paltry money in his hand?
But after a while, Lady Lufton, exercising some cunning in the operations of her friendship, had persuaded her sister-in-law at the Framley parsonage to have Grace Crawley over there as a visitor,--and there she had been during the summer holidays previous to the commencement of our story.

And there, at Framley, she had become acquainted with Major Grantly, who was staying with Lord Lufton at Framley Court.

She had then said something to her mother about Major Grantly, something ambiguous, something about his being "very nice," and the mother had thought how great was the pity that her daughter, who was "nice" too in her estimation, should have so few of those adjuncts to assist her which come from full pockets.