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, Not to be come at by the willing hand."

curred the hinderance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious labor with the play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his He had no sonnets to write, and it could not culminating age, the solace of female tendance strike him agreeably that he was not an object for his declining years. Hence he determined of preference to the woman whom he had pre- to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and ferred. Already the knowledge that Dorothea perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedhad chosen Mr. Casaubon had bruised his at-ingly shallow rill it was. As in droughty regions tachment and relaxed its hold. Although Sir baptism by immersion could only be performed James was a sportsman, he had some other feel-symbolically, so Mr. Casaubon found that sprink ings toward women than toward grouse and fox-ling was the utmost approach to a plunge which es, and did not regard his future wife in the light his stream would afford him; and he concluded of prey, valuable chiefly for the excitements of that the poets had much exaggerated the force the chase. Neither was he so well acquainted of masculine passion. Nevertheless, he observed with the habits of primitive races as to feel that with pleasure that Miss Brooke showed an ardent, an ideal combat for her, tomahawk in hand, so submissive affection which promised to fulfill his to speak, was necessary to the historical continu- most agreeable previsions of marriage. It had ity of the marriage tie. On the contrary, hav- once or twice crossed his mind that possibly ing the amiable vanity which knits us to those there was some deficiency in Dorothea to acwho are fond of us, and disinclines us to those count for the moderation of his abandonment; who are indifferent, and also a good, grateful but he was unable to discern the deficiency, or nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kind- to figure to himself a woman who would have ness toward him spun little threads of tenderness pleased him better; so that there was clearly no from out his heart toward hers. reason to fall back upon but the exaggerations of human tradition.

Thus it happened that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackened his pace, and at last turned into a road which would lead him back by a shorter cut. Various feelings wrought in him the determination, after all, to go to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened. He could not help rejoicing that he had never made the offer and been rejected; mere friendly politeness required that he should call to see Dorothea about the cottages; and now happily Mrs. Cadwallader had prepared him to offer his congratulations, if necessary, without showing too much awkwardness. He really did not like it giving up Dorothea was very painful to him; but there was something in the resolve to make this visit forthwith, and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention than

he had done before.

"Could I not be preparing myself now to be
more useful?" said Dorothea to him, one morn-
ing, early in the time of courtship;
"could I
not learn to read Latin and Greek aloud to you,
as Milton's daughters did to their father, with-
out understanding what they read?"

"I fear that would be wearisome to you," said
Mr. Casaubon, smiling; "and, indeed, if I re-
member rightly, the young women you have
mentioned regarded that exercise in unknown
tongues as a ground for rebellion against the
poet.'

"Yes; but in the first place, they were very naughty girls, else they would have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second place, they might have studied privately, and taught themselves to understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting. I hope you don't expect me to be naughty and stupid?"

"I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every possible relation of life. Certainly it might be a great advantage if you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well to begin with a little reading."

Dorothea seized this as a precious permission. She would not have asked Mr. Casaubon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all things to be tiresome instead of helpful; but it was not entirely out of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and Greek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly. As it was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions, because she felt her own ignorance; how could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were not for the glory of God, 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, and judge soundly on the social duties of the Christian. And she had not reached that point

of renunciation at which she would have been | after boyhood. As to the grander forms of musatisfied with having a wise husband: she wish- sic, worthy to accompany solemn celebrations, ed, poor child, to be wise herself. Miss Brooke and even to serve as an educating influence acwas certainly very naïve, with all her alleged cording to the ancient conception, I say nothcleverness. Celia,, whose mind had never been ing, for with these we are not immediately conthought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other cerned." people's pretensions much more readily. To have in general but little feeling seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

However, Mr. Casaubon consented to listen and teach for an hour together, like a schoolmaster of little boys, or, rather, like a lover, to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a touching fitness. Few scholars would have disliked teaching the alphabet under such circumstances. But Dorothea herself was a little shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable of explanation to a woman's reason.

Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the reading was going forward.

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"No; but music of that sort I should enjoy," said Dorothea. "When we were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ at Freiberg, and it made me sob." "That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear," said Mr. Brooke. Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea ?"

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He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam.

"It is wonderful, though," he said to himself, as he shuffled out of the room-"it is wonderful that she should have liked him. However, the match is good. I should have been traveling out of my brief to have hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will. He is pretty certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon: that was a very seasonable pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question: a deanery at least. They owe him a deanery."

'Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics, that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman-too taxing, you know." And here I must vindicate a claim to philo"Dorothea is learning to read the characters sophical reflectiveness by remarking that Mr. simply," said Mr. Casaubon, evading the ques- Brooke on this occasion little thought of the Radtion. "She had the very considerate thought ical speech which, at a later period, he was led to of saving my eyes.' make on the incomes of the bishops. What ele"Ah, well, without understanding, you know gant historian would neglect a striking opportu-that may not be so bad. But there is a light-nity for pointing out that his heroes did not foreness about the feminine mind—a touch and go- see the history of the world, or even their own music, the fine arts, that kind of thing-they actions? For example, that Henry of Nashould study those up to a certain point, women varre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of should; but in a light way, you know. A woman being a Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the should be able to sit down and play you or sing Great, when he measured his laborious nights you a good old English tune. That is what I with burning candles, had no idea of future genlike; though I have heard most things-been at tlemen measuring their idle days with watches. the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, every thing Here is a mine of truth, which, however vigorof that sort. But I'm a conservative in music-ously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our it's not like ideas, you know. I stick to the coal. good old tunes.'

"Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not," said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been asking her to play the "Last Rose of Summer," she would have required much resignation. "He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick, and it is covered with books."

"Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia, now, plays very prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Casaubon does not like it, you are all right. But it's a pity you should not have little recreations of that sort, Casaubon the bow always strung-that kind of thing, you know-will not do."

"I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears teased with measured noises," said Mr. Casaubon. "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, I imagine,

But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark, perhaps less warranted by precedent-namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not have made any great difference. To think with pleasure of his niece's husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing-to make a Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which can not look at a subject from various points of view.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,
And you her father. Every gentle maid
Should have a guardian in each gentleman."

It was wonderful to Sir James Chettam how well he continued to like going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty of seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was engaged to another man. Of course the forked lightning seemed to pass through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness; but, good as he was, it

"I hear what you are talking about," said the | Middlemarch, said Casaubon was the learned wife. "But you will make no impression on straw-chopping incumbent, and Freke was the Humphrey. As long as the fish rise to his bait, brick-and-mortar incumbent, and I was the anevery body is what he ought to be. Bless you, gling incumbent. And upon my word, I don't Casaubon has got a trout stream, and does not see that one is worse or better than the other." care about fishing in it himself: could there be The rector ended with his silent laugh. He ala better fellow ?" ways saw the joke of any satire against himself. His conscience was large and easy, like the rest of him: it did only what it could do without any trouble.

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"Well, there is something in that," said the rector, with his quiet inward laugh. It is a very good quality in a man to have a trout

stream.

In the first place," said the rector, looking rather grave, "it would be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act accordingly. Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy; he will run into any mould, but he won't keep shape.'

"He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage," said Sir James.

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But, my dear Chettam, why should I use my influence to Casaubon's disadvantage, 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. I don't care about his Xisuthrus and Fee-fo-fum and the rest; but then he doesn't care about my fishing - tackle. As to the line he took on the Catholic Question, that was unexpected; but he has always been civil to me, and I don't see why I should spoil his sport. For any thing I can tell, Miss Brooke may be happier with him than she would be with any other man.

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Humphrey! I have no patience with you. You know you would rather dine under the hedge than with Casaubon alone. You have nothing to say to each other."

"What has that to do with Miss Brooke's marrying him? She does not do it for my amusement."

"He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.

"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader.

"Why does he not bring out his book, instead of marrying?" said Sir James, with a disgust which he held warranted by the sound feeling of an English layman.

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'Oh, he dreams foot-notes, and they run away with all his brains. They say, when he was a little boy, he made an abstract of 'Hop-o'my-Thumb,' and he has been making abstracts ever since. Ugh! And that is the man Humphrey goes on saying that a woman may be hapPy with."

"Well, he is what Miss Brooke likes," said the rector. "I don't profess to understand every young lady's taste.'

"But if she were your own daughter?" said Sir James.

"That would be a different affair. She is not my daughter, and I don't feel called upon to interfere. Casaubon is as good as most of us. He is a scholarly clergyman, and creditable to the cloth. Some Radical fellow, speechifying at

Clearly, there would be no interference with Miss Brooke's marriage through Mr. Cadwallader; and Sir James felt with some sadness that she was to have perfect liberty of misjudgment. It was a sign of his good disposition that he did not slacken at all in his intention of carrying out Dorothea's design of the cottages. Doubtless this persistence was the best course for his own dignity: but pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity will help us to be witty. She was now enough aware of Sir James's position with regard to her to appreciate the rectitude of his perseverance in a landlord's duty, to which he had at first been urged by a lover's complaisance, and her pleasure in it was great enough to count for something even in her present happiness. Perhaps she gave to Sir James Chettam's cottages all the interest she could spare from Mr. Casaubon, or rather from the symphony of hopeful dreams, admiring trust, and passionate self-devotion which that learned gentleman had set playing in her soul. Hence it happened that in the good baronet's succeeding visits, while he was beginning to pay small attentions to Celia, he found himself talking with more and more pleasure to Dorothea. She was perfectly unconstrained and without irritation toward him now, 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.

CHAPTER IX.

1st Gent. An ancient land in ancient oracles
Is called "law-thirsty:" all the struggle there
Was after order and a perfect rule.
Pray, where lie such lands now?

2d Gent. Why, where they lay of old-
In human souls.

MR. CASAUBON's behavior about settlements was highly satisfactory to Mr. Brooke, and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along, shortening the weeks of courtship. The betrothed bride must see her future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made there. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterward. And certainly 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.

On a gray but dry November morning Dorothea drove to Lowick in company with her uncle and Celia. Mr. Casaubon's home was the manor-house. Close by, visible from some parts of the garden, was the little church, with the old parsonage opposite. In the beginning of his career Mr. Casaubon had only held the living, but the death of his brother had put him in pos

all blanks with unmanifested perfections, interpreting him as she interpreted the works of Providence, and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness to the higher harmonies. And there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship, which a loving faith fills with happy assurance.

"Now, my dear Dorothea, I wish you to favor me by pointing out which room you would like to have as your boudoir," said Mr. Casaubon, showing that his views of the womanly nature were sufficiently large to include that requirement.

session of the manor also. It had a small park, | tenderness had no defect for her. She filled up with a fine old oak here and there, and an avenue of limes toward the southwest front, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground, 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, which often seemed to melt into a lake under the setting sun. This was the happy side of the house, for the south and east looked rather melancholy even under the brightest morning. The grounds here were more confined, the flower beds showed no very careful tendance, and large clumps of trees, chiefly of sombre yews, had risen high not ten yards from the windows. The building, of greenish stone, was in the old English style, not ugly, but smallwindowed and melancholy looking: the sort of house that must have children, many flowers, open windows, and little vistas of bright things to make it seem a joyous home. In this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without sunshine, the house, too, had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr. Casau-bow-window looked down the avenue of limes; bon, when he presented himself, had no bloom that could be thrown into relief by that background.

"Oh dear!" Celia said to herself, "I am sure Freshitt Hall would have been pleasanter than this." She thought of the white freestone, the pillared portico, and the terrace full of flowers, Sir James smiling above them like a prince issuing from his enchantment in a rose-bush, with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately odorous petals-Sir James, who talked so agreeably, always about things which had common-sense in them, and not about learning! Celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weather-worn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr. Casaubon's bias had been different, for he would have had no chance with Celia.

Dorothea, on the contrary, found the house and grounds all that she could wish: the dark book-shelves in the long library, the carpets and curtains with colors subdued by time, the curious old maps and bird's-eye views on the walls of the corridor, with here and there an old vase below, had no oppression for her, and seemed more cheerful than the casts and pictures at the Grange, which her uncle had long ago brought home from his travels-they being probably among the ideas he had taken in at one time. To poor Dorothea those severe classical nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully inexplicable, 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. But the owners of Lowick apparently had not been travelers, and Mr. Casaubon's studies of the past were not carried on by means of such aids.

Dorothea walked about the house with delightful emotion. Every thing seemed hallowed to her: this was to be the home of her wifehood, and she looked up with eyes full of confidence to Mr. Casaubon when he drew her attention specially to some actual arrangement, and asked her if she would like an alteration. All appeals to her taste she met gratefully, but saw nothing to alter. His efforts at exact courtesy and formal

"It is very kind of you to think of that," said Dorothea, "but I assure you I would rather have all those matters decided for me. I shall be much happier to take every thing as it is— just as you have been used to have it, or as you will yourself choose it to be. I have no motive for wishing any thing else."

"Oh, Dodo," said Celia, "will you not have the bow-windowed room up stairs ?" Mr. Casaubon led the way thither.

The

the furniture was all of a faded blue, and there were miniatures of ladies and gentlemen with powdered hair hanging in a group. A piece of tapestry over a door also showed a blue-green wold with a pale stag in it. The chairs and tables were thin-legged and easy to upset. It was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her embroidery. A light book-case contained duodecimo volumes of polite literature in calf, completing the furniture.

"Yes," said Mr. Brooke, "this would be a pretty room with some new hangings, sofas, and that sort of thing. A little bare now.

"No, uncle," said Dorothea, eagerly. "Pray do not speak of altering any thing. There are so many other things in the world that want altering-I like to take these things as they are. And you like them as they are, don't you?" she added, looking at Mr. Casaubon. " 'Perhaps this was your mother's room when she was young."

"It was," he said, with his slow bend of the head.

"This is your mother," said Dorothea, who had turned to examine the group of miniatures. "It is like the tiny one you brought me; only, I should think, a better portrait. And this one opposite, who is this?"

"Her elder sister. They were, like you and your sister, the only two children of their parents, who hang above them, you see."

"The sister is pretty," said Celia, implying that she thought less favorably of Mr. Casaubon's mother. It was a new opening to Celia's imagination that he came of a family who had all been young in their time-the ladies wearing necklaces.

"It is a peculiar face," said Dorothea, looking closely. "Those deep gray eyes rather near together-and the delicate irregular nose with a sort of ripple in it-and all the powdered curls hanging backward. Altogether it seems to me peculiar rather than pretty. There is not even a family likeness between her and your mother." "No. And they were not alike in their lot."