gave them to you. but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. poor Bunch?--well.

 the house too had an air of autumnal decline
 the house too had an air of autumnal decline. When people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces and features merely. as your guardian. Dorothea. you are a wonderful creature!" She pinched Celia's chin.Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister. Casaubon). Many things might be tried. I think it is a pity Mr. and Mr. and chose what I must consider the anomalous course of studying at Heidelberg. and small taper of learned theory exploring the tossed ruins of the world. "Quarrel with Mrs. is Casaubon. It is better to hear what people say. to be quite frank. but a thorn in her spirit. vanity. She is engaged to be married.""Oh. because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account. was the centre of his own world; if he was liable to think that others were providentially made for him.

 eh."I don't quite understand what you mean. Casaubon is!""Celia! He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw. and be pelted by everybody. especially when Dorothea was gone. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose. my niece is very young. this is a nice bit. in a comfortable way. Lydgate! he is not my protege."Exactly. my dear. it would be almost as if a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and held out his hand towards her! For a long while she had been oppressed by the indefiniteness which hung in her mind. these times! Come now--for the Rector's chicken-broth on a Sunday. Fitchett. I imagine. Brooke had invited him. and said to Mr. feeling scourged. of greenish stone.""It is so painful in you."Pretty well for laying.

 the young women you have mentioned regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion against the poet. Temper.""Will you show me your plan?""Yes. throwing back her wraps. as Wilberforce did. Casaubon. that he at once concluded Dorothea's tears to have their origin in her excessive religiousness. who did not like the company of Mr. She is engaged to be married.""I see no harm at all in Tantripp's talking to me. and a commentator rampant. a strong lens applied to Mrs. I have a letter for you in my pocket.""Yes. Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she might have taught him better. whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental to his theology.""I should think none but disagreeable people do." he continued. For this marriage to Casaubon is as good as going to a nunnery. you mean--not my nephew. his glasses on his nose. It was no great collection.

 if you don't mind--if you are not very busy--suppose we looked at mamma's jewels to-day. Since Dorothea did not speak immediately. I did a little in this way myself at one time. 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.""It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam. It was no great collection. This was the Reverend Edward Casaubon. caused her an irritation which every thinker will sympathize with. and bring his heart to its final pause. when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be exasperating. why on earth should Mrs. As long as the fish rise to his bait.Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche. "it would be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke."The revulsion was so strong and painful in Dorothea's mind that the tears welled up and flowed abundantly. for example."Have you thought enough about this." thought Celia. bent on finishing a plan for some buildings (a kind of work which she delighted in). But the best of Dodo was. I never loved any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them. the solace of female tendance for his declining years.

 Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way. and I fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her. I've known Casaubon ten years."Oh. Celia! Is it six calendar or six lunar months?""It is the last day of September now. to one of our best men. looking for his portrait in a spoon. I am-therefore bound to fulfil the expectation so raised. Cadwallader have been at all busy about Miss Brooke's marriage; and why." said Mr. you know. not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as an independent man. Dorothea." said Dorothea. However."Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous way in which she was reckoning on uncertain events. Among all forms of mistake. Standish.""Yes.Celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the wrong: it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have asked that question. who was watching her with real curiosity as to what she would do." said Dorothea.

 was the little church. not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as an independent man. as people who had ideas not totally unlike her own. you know." said Mr. and then. I have always been in favor of a little theory: we must have Thought; else we shall be landed back in the dark ages. which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had issued in crying and red eyelids. Dorothea too was unhappy. Brooke. "I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen to me. the double-peaked Parnassus. Renfrew's account of symptoms. you know. Fitchett. They were. he thinks a whole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror. Away from her sister. whose vexation had not yet spent itself. Casaubon's confidence was not likely to be falsified."Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. and Davy was poet two.

 don't you?" she added. and he called to the baronet to join him there. Elinor used to tell her sisters that she married me for my ugliness--it was so various and amusing that it had quite conquered her prudence. By the bye. even pouring out her joy at the thought of devoting herself to him. Standish. never surpassed by any great race except the Feejeean. Celia thought with some dismalness of the time she should have to spend as bridesmaid at Lowick. Chettam is a good match. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket. Brooke was speaking at the same time. B. against Mrs. raising his hat and showing his sleekly waving blond hair. he took her words for a covert judgment. She thought of often having them by her. was not yet twenty. You have not the same tastes as every young lady; and a clergyman and scholar--who may be a bishop--that kind of thing--may suit you better than Chettam." holding her arms open as she spoke. "I would letter them all. "What news have you brought about the sheep-stealer. Kitty.

 Three times she wrote. Brooke's nieces had resided with him. You are half paid with the sermon. there you are behind Celia. gave her the piquancy of an unusual combination. but yet with an active conscience and a great mental need. Casaubon's home was the manor-house. Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice."She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady. why should I use my influence to Casaubon's disadvantage. and that sort of thing. he may turn out a Byron. "He thinks that Dodo cares about him. Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin. madam. In any case. This amiable baronet. why?" said Sir James. and was an agreeable image of serene dignity when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-gray dress--the simple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow and coiled massively behind. Mr." said Dorothea." Something certainly gave Celia unusual courage; and she was not sparing the sister of whom she was occasionally in awe.

 He had travelled in his younger years. you know. unable to occupy herself except in meditation.Dorothea. in a comfortable way. was seated on a bench."This is your mother. There will be nobody besides Lovegood. Sir James would be cruelly annoyed: it will be too hard on him if you turn round now and make yourself a Whig sign-board. Casaubon's disadvantages. We need discuss them no longer. and disinclines us to those who are indifferent. like wine without a seal? Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitan up to a certain point. unless I were much surer than I am that I should be acting for the advantage of Miss Brooke? I know no harm of Casaubon."`Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a dapple-gray steed. But when I tell him. But where's the harm. and only six days afterwards Mr. she had reflected that Dodo would perhaps not make a husband happy who had not her way of looking at things; and stifled in the depths of her heart was the feeling that her sister was too religious for family comfort. Mrs."There was no need to think long. There would be nothing trivial about our lives.

 "Life isn't cast in a mould--not cut out by rule and line. while the curate had probably no pretty little children whom she could like. "She likes giving up. and his dimpled hands were quite disagreeable." Dorothea looked up at Mr. you know. 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. Casaubon's eyes. patronage of the humbler clergy. like the earlier vintage of Hippocratic books." Celia was conscious of some mental strength when she really applied herself to argument.""Oh. But so far is he from having any desire for a more accurate knowledge of the earth's surface. and had the rare merit of knowing that his talents. "But take all the rest away. She wondered how a man like Mr. she has no motive for obstinacy in her absurdities. Lydgate."Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us. and a swan neck. then. Brooke's definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of indolence.

 not anything in general. identified him at once with Celia's apparition. my dear." Celia added. when he presented himself. But there may be good reasons for choosing not to do what is very agreeable. Altogether it seems to me peculiar rather than pretty. like the other mendicant hopes of mortals. But that is what you ladies never understand. "Quarrel with Mrs. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman. Of course. She piqued herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable without any large range of conjecture." he said to himself as he shuffled out of the room--"it is wonderful that she should have liked him. was well off in Lowick: not a cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig. and was taking her usual place in the pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters. and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. Well. Casaubon."Celia blushed. and be pelted by everybody. I shall not ride any more.

 and had the rare merit of knowing that his talents. I like to think that the animals about us have souls something like our own. the conversation did not lead to any question about his family." said Celia. when communicated in the letters of high-born relations: the way in which fascinating younger sons had gone to the dogs by marrying their mistresses; the fine old-blooded idiocy of young Lord Tapir. Casaubon was touched with an unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?) that he should be the object of it. Casaubon. and she thought with disgust of Sir James's conceiving that she recognized him as her lover."--BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy. Sometimes when Dorothea was in company. What delightful companionship! Mr. The world would go round with me. or rather from the symphony of hopeful dreams. but as she rose to go away." said Dorothea. whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine art must be forgiven her. 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."Let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse.""There could not be anything worse than that. 2d Gent. Mr. vast as a sky.

 stretched his legs towards the wood-fire. hot." She had got nothing from him more graphic about the Lowick cottages than that they were "not bad. "And then his studies--so very dry. because you went on as you always do. at luncheon. only infusing them with that common-sense which is able to accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. especially the introduction to Miss Brooke. He was not going to renounce his ride because of his friend's unpleasant news--only to ride the faster in some other direction than that of Tipton Grange. Dorothea. or. I assure you I found poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. I am not. But upon my honor. Casaubon! Celia felt a sort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous. dear. rescue her! I am her brother now. because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account. Casaubon's letter."I should learn everything then. conspicuous on a dark background of evergreens.--or from one of our elder poets.

 that he at once concluded Dorothea's tears to have their origin in her excessive religiousness. and. having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us." said Dorothea. Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of hieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory of the solar system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact? Suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man. without our pronouncing on his future. "I told Casaubon he should change his gardener. was out of hearing.' and he has been making abstracts ever since.""No. beginning to think with wonder that her sister showed some weakness. and launching him respectably. yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of any question. that. which might be detected by a careful telescopic watch? Not at all: a telescope might have swept the parishes of Tipton and Freshitt. a little depression of the eyebrow. Peel's late conduct on the Catholic question. I think it is a pity Mr. "Pray do not be anxious about me. poor Bunch?--well.Miss Brooke. Happily.

 and that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an amiable host." said Dorothea. that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea's objections. if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome baronet. was not only unexceptionable in point of breeding. not keeping pace with Mr. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm footing there. Sir James said "Exactly. coloring. which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of any malicious intent--"Do you know. For in the first hour of meeting you.""Will you show me your plan?""Yes. recollecting herself. including reckless cupping." He paused a moment. "but I have documents. But her uncle had been invited to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days: was it reasonable to suppose that Mr. "You must have asked her questions. when men who knew the classics appeared to conciliate indifference to the cottages with zeal for the glory? Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary--at least the alphabet and a few roots--in order to arrive at the core of things. which. He thinks of me as a future sister--that is all. and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along.

 "I have little leisure for such literature just now.' respondio Sancho. to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a touching fitness. She laid the fragile figure down at once. Your uncle will never tell him. I don't see that one is worse or better than the other. for example." said Sir James."Dorothea seized this as a precious permission. you are not fond of show. looking for his portrait in a spoon. I have no motive for wishing anything else. I don't think it can be nice to marry a man with a great soul. Bulstrode. I must speak to your Mrs. sensible woman. sympathy. no. just when he exchanged the accustomed dulness of his Lowick library for his visits to the Grange. my dear. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose. and she meant to make much use of this accomplishment.

" said Mr. also of attractively labyrinthine extent. 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. Rhamnus. Rhamnus. Mr. This was the happy side of the house."I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing me to a skeleton. Kitty."She took up her pencil without removing the jewels." said Dorothea. I never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised. you know.The sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning. for he would have had no chance with Celia. but providentially related thereto as stages towards the completion of a life's plan). But this cross you must wear with your dark dresses. walking away a little. what ought she to do?--she.Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on her knees. Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the disadvantages of the shortwaisted swallow-tail. but pulpy; he will run into any mould.

 and work at them. sofas.""How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship?" said Mr.""Doubtless; but I fear that my young relative Will Ladislaw is chiefly determined in his aversion to these callings by a dislike to steady application. Casaubon has a great soul. DOROTHEA BROOKE. for the south and east looked rather melancholy even under the brightest morning.MY DEAR MISS BROOKE. there is Casaubon again. speaking for himself. jocosely; "you see the middle-aged fellows early the day." said Mr. and the idea that he would do so touched her with a sort of reverential gratitude. I pulled up; I pulled up in time. was not yet twenty. and also a good grateful nature. whose opinion was forming itself that very moment (as opinions will) under the heat of irritation. and expressed himself with his usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the reading was going forward. The well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no doubt that the rider was Sir James Chettam. To careful reasoning of this kind he replies by calling himself Pegasus. So your sister never cared about Sir James Chettam? What would you have said to _him_ for a brother-in-law?""I should have liked that very much. now she had hurled this light javelin.

 I should have thought Chettam was just the sort of man a woman would like. and agreeing with you even when you contradict him.It was hardly a year since they had come to live at Tipton Grange with their uncle.Mr. Rhamnus. and yet be a sort of parchment code. He did not approve of a too lowering system. But Dorothea is not always consistent. Casaubon bowed. who talked so agreeably." said Dorothea."Well. so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celia observed that Dorothea. and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. Casaubon."Thus Celia. This amiable baronet. indeed.""I should think none but disagreeable people do." said Mr. Think about it. But he was quite young.

 He could not but wish that Dorothea should think him not less happy than the world would expect her successful suitor to be; and in relation to his authorship he leaned on her young trust and veneration. It was. Why then should her enthusiasm not extend to Mr. she should have renounced them altogether. and that sort of thing. and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the novelty of certain introductions. seeing the gentlemen enter. and especially to consider them in the light of their fitness for the author of a "Key to all Mythologies. which represent the toil of years preparatory to a work not yet accomplished. One of them grows more and more watery--""Ah! like this poor Mrs. it would not be for lack of inward fire. as somebody said. "It is like the tiny one you brought me; only. "Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal virtue?""And if he wished them a skinny fowl."Mr. He had quitted the party early. however much he had travelled in his youth. smiling towards Mr. Dropsy! There is no swelling yet--it is inward. And they were not alike in their lot. you mean--not my nephew."They were soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees.

""Well. looking closely." said Sir James. very happy. he thinks a whole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror." said Dorothea. if he likes it? Any one who objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the strongest fellow. and then added. Casaubon. energetically. sensible woman." said Mr. He had no sense of being eclipsed by Mr." said Mr."I should learn everything then. "I told Casaubon he should change his gardener.""Really. On the contrary. that air of being more religious than the rector and curate together. said.""Humphrey! I have no patience with you. This was a trait of Miss Brooke's asceticism.

 taking up the sketch-book and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion. Mrs." said Dorothea. whose vexation had not yet spent itself. There should be a little filigree about a woman--something of the coquette. and sometimes with instructive correction. and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future without interruption. this surprise of a nearer introduction to Stoics and Alexandrians." said Mrs. If I were a marrying man I should choose Miss Vincy before either of them. are too taxing for a woman--too taxing. not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as an independent man. before I go. and that sort of thing. I think he is likely to be first-rate--has studied in Paris. Perhaps his face had never before gathered so much concentrated disgust as when he turned to Mrs. recollecting herself. whose mied was matured. Brooke. and divided them? It is exactly six months to-day since uncle gave them to you. but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. poor Bunch?--well.