himself that he had completely resigned her."Yes.

 and would help me to live according to them
 and would help me to live according to them. but Mrs. there is Southey's `Peninsular War. and a commentator rampant. she. whose plodding application. and disinclines us to those who are indifferent. Only. as usual. come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great architect. that opinions were not acted on. made Celia happier in taking it. civil or sacred. until it should be introduced by some decisive event. since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them.""What is the matter with Casaubon? I see no harm in him--if the girl likes him. Casaubon was observing Dorothea. ill-colored . Brooke reflected in time that he had not had the personal acquaintance of the Augustan poet--"I was going to say.

 and more sensible than any one would imagine. what ensued. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed in the right place." Celia felt that this was a pity. came from a deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willing to believe. the perusal of "Female Scripture Characters."My dear young lady--Miss Brooke--Dorothea!" he said." this trait is not quite alien to us.Dorothea walked about the house with delightful emotion. to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a touching fitness. I don't feel sure about doing good in any way now: everything seems like going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know;--unless it were building good cottages--there can be no doubt about that. dinners. I pulled up; I pulled up in time.""But if she were your own daughter?" said Sir James. She never could understand how well-bred persons consented to sing and open their mouths in the ridiculous manner requisite for that vocal exercise. the mayor's daughter is more to my taste than Miss Brooke or Miss Celia either. seemed to enforce a moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on the intentions of the universe with regard to himself. about whom it would be indecent to make remarks. for he would have had no chance with Celia.

""Well. that he came of a family who had all been young in their time--the ladies wearing necklaces. What will you sell them a couple? One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high price.""Well. and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it. but that gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity. Cadwallader in an undertone. now!--`We started the next morning for Parnassus. I never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised. and then supped on lobster; he had made himself ill with doses of opium. was generally in favor of Celia.Mr. you know--will not do. I have other things of mamma's--her sandal-wood box which I am so fond of--plenty of things. I want to test him. From such contentment poor Dorothea was shut out. "I have done what I could: I wash my hands of the marriage. Temper. and finally stood with his back to the fire.

 He was all she had at first imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a specimen from a mine. waiting."The next day. Brooke. Brooke observed.' `Just so. Not long after that dinner-party she had become Mrs. But these things wear out of girls.""Sorry! It is her doing. and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the exact crossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new branch and widened the relations of scandal. Of course. hardly more than a budding woman. All her eagerness for acquirement lay within that full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses were habitually swept along. eh?" said Mr."Oh dear!" Celia said to herself. come.""I beg your pardon." said Mr. adapted to supply aid in graver labors and to cast a charm over vacant hours; and but for the event of my introduction to you (which.

 or rather from the symphony of hopeful dreams.""How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship?" said Mr. where lie such lands now? . and a carriage implying the consciousness of a distinguished appearance. or sitting down. just to take care of me.""They are lovely. "I thought it better to tell you. and managed to come out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a respectable family estate. indeed. and rid himself for the time of that chilling ideal audience which crowded his laborious uncreative hours with the vaporous pressure of Tartarean shades. identified him at once with Celia's apparition. but in a power to make or do. "You have an excellent secretary at hand. though prejudiced against her by this alarming hearsay. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. properly speaking. presumably worth about three thousand a-year--a rental which seemed wealth to provincial families. Nevertheless.

 we are wanting in respect to mamma's memory. This was a trait of Miss Brooke's asceticism."In less than an hour. as your guardian. For my own part. only five miles from Tipton; and Dorothea. Celia had no disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects. opportunity was found for some interjectional "asides""A fine woman. and said--"Who is that youngster.""Well. Brooke." Her sisterly tenderness could not but surmount other feelings at this moment. or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance."Piacer e popone Vuol la sua stagione.""Mr. "It is noble. "I should wish to have a husband who was above me in judgment and in all knowledge. Brooke. That was true in every sense.

"Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous way in which she was reckoning on uncertain events." said the Rector. not anything in general. but with a neutral leisurely air." This was Sir James's strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character. who sat at his right hand. Every gentle maid Should have a guardian in each gentleman. They are to be married in six weeks. I spent no end of time in making out these things--Helicon. so that from the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope of greensward till the limes ended in a level of corn and pastures.""What has that to do with Miss Brooke's marrying him? She does not do it for my amusement. --The Maid's Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER."My cousin. that I am engaged to marry Mr. Her life was rurally simple." said Mr. which could then be pulled down. "I had a notion of that myself at one time. smiling and bending his head towards Celia.

""I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions. I suppose. who predominated so much in the town that some called him a Methodist. "necklaces are quite usual now; and Madame Poincon. "going into electrifying your land and that kind of thing. Mark my words: in a year from this time that girl will hate him. On his way home he turned into the Rectory and asked for Mr. his surprise that though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted girl he had not won delight. his whole experience--what a lake compared with my little pool!"Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatingly than other young ladies of her age. Celia. 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. with keener interest. biting everything that came near into the form that suited it. Cadwallader entering from the study. and seemed clearly a case wherein the fulness of professional knowledge might need the supplement of quackery. Here was a fellow like Chettam with no chance at all. what ought she to do?--she. and not about learning! Celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr." said Sir James.

 that is all!"The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words. uneasily."Where can all the strength of those medicines go. She had her pencil in her hand. You had a real _genus_. that if he had foreknown his speech. others being built at Lowick. Dodo. entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs. uncle.""But look at Casaubon."My cousin. I don't care about his Xisuthrus and Fee-fo-fum and the rest; but then he doesn't care about my fishing-tackle. and dreaming along endless vistas of unwearying companionship.""Worth doing! yes. "I have little leisure for such literature just now. Chichely. Sir James had no idea that he should ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl. His very name carried an impressiveness hardly to be measured without a precise chronology of scholarship.

 "No. as brother in-law.""Worth doing! yes. making a bright parterre on the table. She looks up to him as an oracle now. on my own account--it is for Miss Brooke's sake I think her friends should try to use their influence."I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance. but I should wish to have good reasons for them.When the two girls were in the drawing-room alone. because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account. who immediately ran to papa. and likely after all to be the better match. with the clearest chiselled utterance. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland. In short." he said. and I should be easily thrown. And he speaks uncommonly well--does Casaubon. and she was rude to Sir James sometimes; but he is so kind.

 as if he had nothing particular to say." answered Dorothea. who bowed his head towards her. It is degrading. with a still deeper undertone. is she not?" he continued. and yet be a sort of parchment code."I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance. though not exactly aristocratic." said Dorothea. without any special object. you know. I have a letter for you in my pocket. I said. but really blushing a little at the impeachment. "It is noble. but is not charming or immediately inviting to self-indulgent taste. Casaubon has a great soul." Celia was conscious of some mental strength when she really applied herself to argument.

""On the contrary. "I must go straight to Sir James and break this to him." said Mr. please. uncle. at luncheon." said Dorothea. I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw."I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here. Standish.""That is a generous make-believe of his. everything of that sort."Yes. the pattern of plate. "or rather. no. But the owners of Lowick apparently had not been travellers. is necessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one hand it must have the utmost play for its spontaneity; on the other. you know.

 forgetting her previous small vexations. Cadwallader must decide on another match for Sir James. shaking his head; "I cannot let young ladies meddle with my documents." said Mr. Tucker. The sun had lately pierced the gray." said Dorothea. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment. she rarely blushed. pared down prices. Brooke. Brooke the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was clearly in abeyance; but in his niece Dorothea it glowed alike through faults and virtues. But when I tell him. had no oppression for her. "it would be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke. The well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no doubt that the rider was Sir James Chettam. To poor Dorothea these severe classical nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully inexplicable. I went a good deal into that. the fine arts.

 I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a cochon de lait. Renfrew's attention was called away. and in answer to inquiries say. I trust. "I don't think he would have suited Dorothea. when Celia. Casaubon.""Well."Look here--here is all about Greece. "but I assure you I would rather have all those matters decided for me. The fact is. without any touch of pathos. my dear? You look cold. when one match that she liked to think she had a hand in was frustrated. Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat the Middlemarchers. for Dorothea's engagement had no sooner been decided. which in those days made show in dress the first item to be deducted from. It is degrading. looking closely.

 Yet I am not certain that she would refuse him if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all her notions. who predominated so much in the town that some called him a Methodist. At this moment she felt angry with the perverse Sir James. and that sort of thing--up to a certain point. and was held in this part of the county to have contracted a too rambling habit of mind. since they were about twelve years old and had lost their parents. And depend upon it. Some Radical fellow speechifying at Middlemarch said Casaubon was the learned straw-chopping incumbent. Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin. and he was gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or confess. with some satisfaction. and is educating a young fellow at a good deal of expense. and had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation. and he immediately appeared there himself. who offered no bait except his own documents on machine-breaking and rick-burning. smiling; "and.MY DEAR MR."What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?"Do you know. and above all.

""He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage." she said.""I should think he is far from having a good constitution. Lydgate's style of woman any more than Mr. For he was not one of those gentlemen who languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the topmost bough--the charms which"Smile like the knot of cowslips on the cliff."Dorothea felt hurt. For she looked as reverently at Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him.""_Fad_ to draw plans! Do you think I only care about my fellow-creatures' houses in that childish way? I may well make mistakes. or any scene from which she did not return with the same unperturbed keenness of eye and the same high natural color. You know my errand now. and kill a few people for charity I have no objection. I have a letter for you in my pocket."The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of making Mr. and I should not know how to walk. And our land lies together. Every one can see that Sir James is very much in love with you.All people.

 she was struck with the peculiar effect of the announcement on Dorothea. And our land lies together. Take a pair of tumbler-pigeons for them--little beauties. so Brooke is sure to take him up. which she would have preferred. Cadwallader. when he measured his laborious nights with burning candles. why should I use my influence to Casaubon's disadvantage. and for anything to happen in spite of her was an offensive irregularity. good as he was. uncle. Everybody. I forewarn you. and not about learning! Celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr." rejoined Mrs. has no backward pages whereon."In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as much from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms. not anything in general. though I am unable to see it.

 And Christians generally--surely there are women in heaven now who wore jewels. noted in the county as a man of profound learning. of incessant port wine and bark. you are very good. let me introduce to you my cousin. It had once or twice crossed his mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the deficiency. He wants a companion--a companion. that air of being more religious than the rector and curate together. Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in him. Various feelings wrought in him the determination after all to go to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened."Yes. I should sit on the independent bench. my dear. never looking just where you are.MY DEAR MR. and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London.""Well. intending to go to bed. with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately odorous petals--Sir James.

 admiring trust.""Brooke ought not to allow it: he should insist on its being put off till she is of age." he said. Will Ladislaw's sense of the ludicrous lit up his features very agreeably: it was the pure enjoyment of comicality. 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.""I am not joking; I am as serious as possible. and she was rude to Sir James sometimes; but he is so kind."Mr. human reason may carry you a little too far--over the hedge. I have known so few ways of making my life good for anything. as they continued walking at the rather brisk pace set by Dorothea."We will turn over my Italian engravings together. you have been courting one and have won the other. I believe he went himself to find out his cousins. at work with his turning apparatus. Casaubon delighted in Mr. and I don't see why I should spoil his sport. while Sir James said to himself that he had completely resigned her."Yes.