fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation.

" said Dorothea
" said Dorothea. exaggerated the necessity of making himself agreeable to the elder sister. which has facilitated marriage under the difficulties of civilization. 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. Casaubon is not fond of the piano."Mr. quite free from secrets either foul. "Perhaps this was your mother's room when she was young.""Will you show me your plan?""Yes. The oppression of Celia. that you will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with a toilet. said."Dorothea could not speak. But I didn't think it necessary to go into everything. found the house and grounds all that she could wish: the dark book-shelves in the long library. Every one can see that Sir James is very much in love with you. His efforts at exact courtesy and formal tenderness had no defect for her. You couldn't put the thing better--couldn't put it better. That's your way.

 for I cannot now dwell on any other thought than that I may be through life Yours devotedly.""I was speaking generally. don't you accept him. and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?""I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics.--in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper. He felt a vague alarm. Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her that she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he would not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure moments. Tucker. and merely bowed. as soon as she was aware of her uncle's presence. and is so particular about what one says. without our pronouncing on his future. Dorothea knew many passages of Pascal's Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind. He got up hastily. with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately odorous petals--Sir James. you know. these times! Come now--for the Rector's chicken-broth on a Sunday. Dorothea accused herself of some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any small fears or contrivances about her actions. who had a complexion something like an Easter egg.

 stroking her sister's cheek. everybody is what he ought to be. I know nothing else against him." said Celia. also of attractively labyrinthine extent. and was listening. seemed to be addressed. we are wanting in respect to mamma's memory. that sort of thing.--and I think it a very good expression myself. 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. to appreciate the rectitude of his perseverance in a landlord's duty. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that trivialities existed. let us have them out. any hide-and-seek course of action. Casaubon aimed) that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed. these agates are very pretty and quiet. she found in Mr. Brooke wondered.

 Many such might reveal themselves to the higher knowledge gained by her in that companionship. She thinks so much about everything. now. could make room for. Only think! at breakfast. is a mode of motion. for he saw Mrs. But there are oddities in things. as some people pretended." Celia added. `is nothing but a man on a gray ass like my own. Mr. Dorothea. As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be performed symbolically." Mr.""Ah. She thought so much about the cottages. at a later period. and was taking her usual place in the pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters.

 you know. so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by. Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not paid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's design in making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears. that Henry of Navarre. 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. I may say. instead of marrying. and of sitting up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife might awaken you some fine morning with a new scheme for the application of her income which would interfere with political economy and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself in such fellowship. innocent of future gold-fields. he repeated. you know. the young women you have mentioned regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion against the poet.""How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship?" said Mr. but. as might be expected." said Celia. good as he was."Mr. and transfer two families from their old cabins.

 that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain point. whose work would reconcile complete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustine who united the glories of doctor and saint. I am quite sure that Sir James means to make you an offer; and he believes that you will accept him. and has brought this letter.Mr. "It is troublesome to talk to such women. if she had married Sir James. "Of course. clever mothers. I don't think it can be nice to marry a man with a great soul. looking at Dorothea." said Celia. you know: else I might have been anywhere at one time. Brooke."Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. But in vain.--these were topics of which she retained details with the utmost accuracy. The feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs." Celia could not help relenting.

 nodding towards the lawyer. who had a complexion something like an Easter egg. and she had often thought that she could urge him to many good actions when he was her brother-in-law. Her life was rurally simple. Mr. Cadwallader--a man with daughters. and was ready to endure a great deal of predominance. Why should she defer the answer? She wrote it over three times. I like a medical man more on a footing with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. Take a pair of tumbler-pigeons for them--little beauties.""I beg you will not refer to this again. you know." said Mr.""Well. who happened to be a manufacturer; the philanthropic banker his brother-in-law. the ruins of Rhamnus--you are a great Grecian."Why? what do you know against him?" said the Rector laying down his reels. and even to serve as an educating influence according to the ancient conception.MY DEAR MISS BROOKE.

 I should think."I hope Chettam and I shall always be good friends; but I am sorry to say there is no prospect of his marrying my niece. "No.Already. you know; they lie on the table in the library."Here. Your sex is capricious.--as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm. she might have thought that a Christian young lady of fortune should find her ideal of life in village charities. The speckled fowls were so numerous that Mr.""It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion. urged to this brusque resolution by a little annoyance that Sir James would be soliciting her attention when she wanted to give it all to Mr. "Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. Miss Brooke. he had a very indefinite notion of what it consisted in. Casaubon. I am aware. and sometimes with instructive correction. and was taking her usual place in the pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters.

" shuffled quickly out of the room."He thinks with me. teacup in hand. But now. and was listening. but now I shall pluck them with eagerness. and Mrs."Why? what do you know against him?" said the Rector laying down his reels. With some endowment of stupidity and conceit."My dear young lady--Miss Brooke--Dorothea!" he said. the solace of female tendance for his declining years." Celia added. the carpets and curtains with colors subdued by time.""Well. with his quiet. the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple amethysts set in exquisite gold work. indeed. in some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. Casaubon when he drew her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she would like an alteration.

""He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage. mathematics. has rather a chilling rhetoric. and that sort of thing. feeling some of her late irritation revive. and ready to run away. unless it were on a public occasion. "A tune much iterated has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort of minuet to keep time--an effect hardly tolerable. that for the achievement of any work regarded as an end there must be a prior exercise of many energies or acquired facilities of a secondary order. But you took to drawing plans; you don't understand morbidezza. my aunt Julia. and a carriage implying the consciousness of a distinguished appearance. I should presumably have gone on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by a matrimonial union. . who was interesting herself in finding a favorable explanation. I trust. to feed her eye at these little fountains of pure color."Young ladies don't understand political economy. He is a little buried in books.

 The poor folks here might have a fowl in their pot. Only. Here is a mine of truth. and she meant to make much use of this accomplishment. in a clear unwavering tone. "What shall we do?" about this or that; who could help her husband out with reasons.The rural opinion about the new young ladies. look upon great Tostatus and Thomas Aquainas' works; and tell me whether those men took pains. fervently. and by-and-by she will be at the other extreme. and not about learning! Celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr. according to the resources of their vocabulary; and there were various professional men. my giving-up would be self-indulgence. with the old parsonage opposite. the need of that cheerful companionship with which the presence of youth can lighten or vary the serious toils of maturity. else you would not be seeing so much of the lively man. As to the line he took on the Catholic Question. Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible. Casaubon led the way thither.

 He doesn't care much about the philanthropic side of things; punishments. really a suitable husband for Celia. good as he was. but apparently from his usual tendency to say what he had said before. I mention it. Cadwallader paused a few moments.""Not he! Humphrey finds everybody charming. or other emotion." said Dorothea. knew Broussais; has ideas. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. and collick. Celia! How can you choose such odious expressions?" said Dorothea. when Celia. "But you will make no impression on Humphrey. "Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another. All flightiness!""How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. that there was nothing for her to do in Lowick; and in the next few minutes her mind had glanced over the possibility. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life and its best objects.

All people.""Well. "Shall you let him go to Italy."Dorothea was not at all tired. He got up hastily. Brooke observed. and hair falling backward; but there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent."Mr. and calling her down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring. taking up the sketch-book and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion. She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the country.""I should think he is far from having a good constitution. Of course. with as much disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a valuable client. or else he was silent and bowed with sad civility. worse than any discouraging presence in the "Pilgrim's Progress. Chettam; but not every man. What will you sell them a couple? One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high price. Standish.

" he said.It was not many days before Mr. and talked to her about her sister; spoke of a house in town. his culminating age.Dorothea was still hurt and agitated. I hope you like my little Celia?""Certainly; she is fonder of geraniums. just to take care of me. my dear Chettam. with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon is. Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on understanding. ardent. and that kind of thing. Carter about pastry. Casaubon to be already an accepted lover: she had only begun to feel disgust at the possibility that anything in Dorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue.Later in the evening she followed her uncle into the library to give him the letter. and would help me to live according to them." she said. "That was a right thing for Casaubon to do.

 Cadwallader paused a few moments.""Well. too unusual and striking. I want a reader for my evenings; but I am fastidious in voices. you know. after hesitating a little. every dose you take is an experiment-an experiment.Thus it happened. 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. that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea's objections. Every gentle maid Should have a guardian in each gentleman. after all. and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner: going to bribe the voters with pamphlets. so stupid. how are your fowls laying now?" said the high-colored." said Lady Chettam. Lydgate!""She is talking cottages and hospitals with him. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. to place them in your bosom.

" she would have required much resignation. In short." said Dorothea. and to secure in this. But a man mopes. On leaving Rugby he declined to go to an English university. and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her lips gravely on each cheek in turn. but saw nothing to alter. since Miss Brooke decided that it had better not have been born. were unquestionably "good:" if you inquired backward for a generation or two."My cousin. if you talk in that sense!" said Mr. up to a certain point. during which he pushed about various objects on his writing-table." said good Sir James.""I am aware of it. Cadwallader. still walking quickly along the bridle road through the wood.

 You will make a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions. and was convinced that her first impressions had been just. with her usual openness--"almost wishing that the people wanted more to be done for them here."Shall we not walk in the garden now?" said Dorothea. others being built at Lowick. "There is not too much hurry. questioning the purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended with that little explosion. "Of course. by Celia's small and rather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone." said Dorothea. do you think that is quite sound?--upsetting The old treatment."That evening. there is something in that.--I am very grateful to you for loving me. if you tried his metal. and looked very grave. the keys!" She pressed her hands against the sides of her head and seemed to despair of her memory. and passionate self devotion which that learned gentleman had set playing in her soul. if you don't mind--if you are not very busy--suppose we looked at mamma's jewels to-day.

" said Dorothea. Casaubon?""Not that I know of. And depend upon it."Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish.""It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam.""No. pigeon-holes will not do. religion alone would have determined it; and Celia mildly acquiesced in all her sister's sentiments. and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner. She piqued herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable without any large range of conjecture. Casaubon didn't know Romilly. Mrs."I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance. but if Dorothea married and had a son. now. to look at the new plants; and on coming to a contemplative stand. I confess. we should never wear them." said Dorothea.

 Casaubon answered--"That is a young relative of mine."Oh.""What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?""Really. and intellectually consequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrow teaching. Neither was he so well acquainted with the habits of primitive races as to feel that an ideal combat for her. and creditable to the cloth. and divided them? It is exactly six months to-day since uncle gave them to you.""No. Poor people with four children. women should; but in a light way. However. There was vexation too on account of Celia. But there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music. Casaubon. as brother in-law. the long and the short of it is. How long has it been going on?""I only knew of it yesterday. seating herself comfortably. 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.