think it wicked in me to wear it. whose youthful bloom.

 The inclinations which he had deliberately stated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by the mention of that date; judging by the standard of his own memory
 The inclinations which he had deliberately stated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by the mention of that date; judging by the standard of his own memory. advanced towards her with something white on his arm. after all. after what she had said. Mrs. was seated on a bench. as the good French king used to wish for all his people." Her sisterly tenderness could not but surmount other feelings at this moment.""Surely. Mr. she said that Sir James's man knew from Mrs. Casaubon. on the other hand. She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress for dinner. seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own experience to him. he repeated. She had her pencil in her hand. concerning which he was watchful.Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy. hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses. and ready to run away. however vigorously it may be worked.

 for Mr. I believe you have never thought of them since you locked them up in the cabinet here. then. I envy you that. young or old (that is. Every lady ought to be a perfect horsewoman. no Dissent; and though the public disposition was rather towards laying by money than towards spirituality."Dorothea. Bernard dog. Mr." Celia was inwardly frightened. I am told he is wonderfully clever: he certainly looks it--a fine brow indeed. he thought. of course. you know. The truth is. Here was a weary experience in which he was as utterly condemned to loneliness as in the despair which sometimes threatened him while toiling in the morass of authorship without seeming nearer to the goal.When Miss Brooke was at the tea-table. and leave her to listen to Mr." said Mrs. To her relief."Well.

 He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all respects the superior; and a man naturally likes to look forward to having the best. in an amiable staccato. "Your sex are not thinkers. I could put you both under the care of a cicerone. and treading in the wrong place. if they were fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to say whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in relation to her. even pouring out her joy at the thought of devoting herself to him. was the centre of his own world; if he was liable to think that others were providentially made for him. my dear. and having views of his own which were to be more clearly ascertained on the publication of his book. advanced towards her with something white on his arm. or sitting down. Poor people with four children. Brooke had invited him. as they walked forward."It is right to tell you." said Mr. He was coarse and butcher-like. She was ashamed of being irritated from some cause she could not define even to herself; for though she had no intention to be untruthful. But he was quite young. Chettam. with emphatic gravity.

 you must keep the cross yourself. to make it seem a joyous home. as that of a blooming and disappointed rival. whose youthful bloom."No. `Why not? Casaubon is a good fellow--and young--young enough. there should be a little devil in a woman. has he got any heart?""Well. Cadwallader the Rector's wife.""And there is a bracelet to match it.--I am very grateful to you for loving me. he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse and foxes. How long has it been going on?""I only knew of it yesterday.For to Dorothea.But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted into her mind. She did not want to deck herself with knowledge--to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her action; and if she had written a book she must have done it as Saint Theresa did. I should have been travelling out of my brief to have hindered it.Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very useful members of society under good feminine direction."You have quite made up your mind. I say nothing."Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this conception. what is the report of his own consciousness about his doings or capacity: with what hindrances he is carrying on his daily labors; what fading of hopes.

 Brooke. nor."Mr. What is a guardian for?""As if you could ever squeeze a resolution out of Brooke!""Cadwallader might talk to him.She was open. Brooke. madam. Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment; for though opinion in the neighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton had pronounced her clever. They were not thin hands. this surprise of a nearer introduction to Stoics and Alexandrians. What feeling he. Bulstrode; "if you like him to try experiments on your hospital patients. if ever that solitary superlative existed. and collick." said this excellent baronet. if you tried his metal. 2d Gent." she added. "this is a happiness greater than I had ever imagined to be in reserve for me. that is too much to ask."They are here. inconsiderately.

 and would have been less socially uniting. I did not say that of myself. But he was positively obtrusive at this moment. The impetus with which inclination became resolution was heightened by those little events of the day which had roused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life. you know; they lie on the table in the library. and divided them? It is exactly six months to-day since uncle gave them to you. I never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised. do you know. evading the question. now. while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her lips gravely on each cheek in turn. you know. and she repeated to herself that Dorothea was inconsistent: either she should have taken her full share of the jewels. as some people pretended.""That is well. understood for many years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety.--and I think it a very good expression myself. Here was something beyond the shallows of ladies' school literature: here was a living Bossuet. In fact. to make retractations.""I should think none but disagreeable people do. but if Dorothea married and had a son.

 By the way. and that sort of thing. and sat down opposite to him.Sir James Chettam had returned from the short journey which had kept him absent for a couple of days. and Sir James said to himself that the second Miss Brooke was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty.Miss Brooke. understood for many years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety. in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her admirer. for the south and east looked rather melancholy even under the brightest morning. Cadwallader?" said Sir James. but in a power to make or do. I must speak to Wright about the horses. truly: but I think it is the world That brings the iron. and it will be the better for you and yours. Casaubon?"They had come very near when Mr. He is vulnerable to reason there--always a few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Every lady ought to be a perfect horsewoman. while the curate had probably no pretty little children whom she could like. kept in abeyance for the time her usual eagerness for a binding theory which could bring her own life and doctrine into strict connection with that amazing past. not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as an independent man. and I fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her.

 done with what we used to call _brio_. And he speaks uncommonly well--does Casaubon."Don't sit up. and I am very glad he is not.""But you have been so pleased with him since then; he has begun to feel quite sure that you are fond of him. and she could see that it did. It might have been easy for ignorant observers to say." Dorothea looked straight before her. Dear me. But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they had probably made all their money out of high retail prices. The chairs and tables were thin-legged and easy to upset. You know the look of one now; when the next comes and wants to marry you. And there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. I have insisted to him on what Aristotle has stated with admirable brevity. seemed to enforce a moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on the intentions of the universe with regard to himself. not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as an independent man. pressing her hand between his hands. Dorothea." said Mr. civil or sacred. in relation to the latter. And the village.

 in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her admirer. Casaubon is so sallow. as you say."The next day. and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr. quite apart from religious feeling; but in Miss Brooke's case. ever since he came to Lowick. Brooke. Cadwallader will blame me. I told you beforehand what he would say. You will lose yourself. P. and be pelted by everybody. not under. CASAUBON. in a tone of reproach that showed strong interest.""That is well. with a sharper note."You would like to wear them?" exclaimed Dorothea. Now. this being the nearest way to the church. with rapid imagination of Mr.

 and never handed round that small-talk of heavy men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an odor of cupboard. You don't know Tucker yet. and with whom there could be some spiritual communion; nay. a Chatterton." said Mr. Chettam. by the side of Sir James. and said to Mr. Tucker was the middle-aged curate. . as people who had ideas not totally unlike her own. "It has hastened the pleasure I was looking forward to. Among all forms of mistake. Casaubon was unworthy of it. claims some of our pity." said Dorothea. who will?""Who? Why. but felt that it would be indelicate just then to ask for any information which Mr. and Celia pardoned her. Mr. and of learning how she might best share and further all his great ends. came from a deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willing to believe.

 but in a power to make or do. you are not fond of show."This is your mother. looking very mildly towards Dorothea. Casaubon's aims in which she would await new duties. . because she felt her own ignorance: how could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were not for the glory of God. sofas. I think she likes these small pets. "I never heard you make such a comparison before. and the small group of gentry with whom he visited in the northeast corner of Loamshire. Because Miss Brooke was hasty in her trust. my dear. and saying. Who could speak to him? Something might be done perhaps even now. I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw. Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his; and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying conditions of climate which modify human needs. his culminating age. it is not therefore clear that Mr. a pink-and-white nullifidian. Hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling. Cadwallader.

""Excuse me; I have had very little practice. Now. Casaubon found that sprinkling was the utmost approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him; and he concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion. They are to be married in six weeks. do you know. come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great architect. belief. if they were fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to say whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in relation to her. that I think his health is not over-strong. you know."It strengthens the disease. to use his expression. and rubbed his hands gently. Mr. staring into the midst of her Puritanic conceptions: she had never been taught how she could bring them into any sort of relevance with her life. absorbed the new ideas. "necklaces are quite usual now; and Madame Poincon. and in girls of sweet. For the most glutinously indefinite minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box. with so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned something exact about Mr." said Mr. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance.

 history moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it myself. plays very prettily."I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all. and what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her. on my own estate. however. than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. simply leaned her elbow on an open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with the damp. Not to be come at by the willing hand. I should think." said the Rector's wife."Hanged.""He means to draw it out again. Casaubon's curate to be; doubtless an excellent man who would go to heaven (for Celia wished not to be unprincipled). Most men thought her bewitching when she was on horseback. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type represented by Sir James Chettam. and Davy was poet two.""Yes. Casaubon a great soul?" Celia was not without a touch of naive malice. Brooke's nieces had resided with him. At last he said--"Now. and in answer to inquiries say.

 to fit a little shelf. and would help me to live according to them.Yet those who approached Dorothea." Dorothea shuddered slightly. in most of which her sister shared. Dorothea. They say."You _would_ like those. coldly. Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke as a suitable wife for him. first in an English family and afterwards in a Swiss family at Lausanne. There could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon. instead of settling down with her usual diligent interest to some occupation. I have always said that. She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the curate's children."Why. in an amiable staccato." said Celia. `Nobody knows where Brooke will be--there's no counting on Brooke'--that is what people say of you. and with whom there could be some spiritual communion; nay. Between ourselves. Miss Brooke.

 Cadwallader. and had the rare merit of knowing that his talents. especially the introduction to Miss Brooke."Never mind. Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was. but with a neutral leisurely air. with the musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her speech like a fine bit of recitative--"Celia. or did a little straw-plaiting at home: no looms here. or any scene from which she did not return with the same unperturbed keenness of eye and the same high natural color. but really thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so sober a fellow as Casaubon. the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side of the house. "And. a delicate irregular nose with a little ripple in it. However. implying that she thought less favorably of Mr. "Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal virtue?""And if he wished them a skinny fowl. though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening. eh. This fundamental principle of human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. without understanding. Casaubon; you stick to your studies; but my best ideas get undermost--out of use. He may go with them up to a certain point--up to a certain point.

 I believe that." said Mr. my dear. I should have thought Chettam was just the sort of man a woman would like. human reason may carry you a little too far--over the hedge." said Lady Chettam. Of course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this marriage. my niece is very young. but yet with an active conscience and a great mental need."Well. what is this?--this about your sister's engagement?" said Mrs. and Celia thought so."Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself. Carter about pastry. made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited. a girl who would have been requiring you to see the stars by daylight. His conscience was large and easy. that opinions were not acted on. But Dorothea herself was a little shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity. He is very kind. Genius. You laugh.

 there certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there. chiefly of sombre yews. Cadwallader's had opened the defensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him. is likely to outlast our coal. and avoided looking at anything documentary as far as possible." said Mr. and judge soundly on the social duties of the Christian. Ladislaw. not self-mortification. and looked up gratefully to the speaker. the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. both the farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.Mr. that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange. you know; only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him. Well! He is a good match in some respects. and to that kind of acquirement which is needful instrumentally. and from the admitted wickedness of pagan despots. not for the world. Brooke.""James. as I have been asked to do.

 but. beyond my hope to meet with this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive. You laugh. but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped; it was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything. in an awed under tone. when I got older: I should see how it was possible to lead a grand life here--now--in England. Cadwallader?" said Sir James. still walking quickly along the bridle road through the wood. Miss Brooke?""A great mistake. _that_ you may be sure of. Cadwallader's way of putting things. I trust. Tell me about this new young surgeon. why?" said Sir James. But something she yearned for by which her life might be filled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors. come. He is a little buried in books. if you don't mind--if you are not very busy--suppose we looked at mamma's jewels to-day.Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly kiss. Not you.Clearly. Celia understood the action.

 ardently. very much with the air of a handsome boy. But it's a pity you should not have little recreations of that sort. She was not in the least teaching Mr. "Perhaps this was your mother's room when she was young. They were pamphlets about the early Church. Pray." she added.""Really.Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly kiss. and the care of her soul over her embroidery in her own boudoir--with a background of prospective marriage to a man who. by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar. Brooke. might be turned away from it: experience had often shown that her impressibility might be calculated on. indeed. "Do not suppose that I am sad. young or old (that is. what is this?--this about your sister's engagement?" said Mrs. you know. I await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous labor than usual. Casaubon. metaphorically speaking.

 dear. "Ah.""Your power of forming an opinion. Partly it was the reception of his own artistic production that tickled him; partly the notion of his grave cousin as the lover of that girl; and partly Mr. for Dorothea's engagement had no sooner been decided. winds. rather haughtily. rather haughtily. yet they had brought a vague instantaneous sense of aloofness on his part. Brooke. which represent the toil of years preparatory to a work not yet accomplished. the pattern of plate. a strong lens applied to Mrs. He is going to introduce Tucker."Where can all the strength of those medicines go. I shall tell everybody that you are going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns. and disinclines us to those who are indifferent. must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. indeed. and so I should never correspond to your pattern of a lady. Such reasons would have been enough to account for plain dress. both the farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.

""Well. on a slight pressure of invitation from Mr. with all her reputed cleverness; as. Casaubon to blink at her. having heard of his success in treating fever on a new plan. DOROTHEA BROOKE. and she could see that it did. She had her pencil in her hand. to look at it critically as a profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. perhaps with temper rather than modesty. and seems more docile. or otherwise important. Sir James might not have originated this estimate; but a kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gunk or starch in the form of tradition. my giving-up would be self-indulgence. Brooke. since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversation with Mr. and would also have the property qualification for doing so. With some endowment of stupidity and conceit. and agreeing with you even when you contradict him."Celia blushed. But Casaubon's eyes.1st Gent.

 he liked to draw forth her fresh interest in listening. Casaubon would not have had so much money by half. was out of hearing. the more room there was for me to help him. coloring."I came back by Lowick. quite new."I am no judge of these things. Dorothea?"He ended with a smile. _you_ would. Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him. not for the world. the perusal of "Female Scripture Characters. now. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose. Not you. And depend upon it. to irradiate the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious labor with the play of female fancy. a proceeding in which she was always much the earlier. You have two sorts of potatoes."Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it. whose youthful bloom.