ing: he was not going to incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose. The Miss Vincy who had the honor of being Mr. Chichely's ideal was, of course, not present; for Mr. Brooke, always objecting to go too far, would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. The feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs. Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs. Renfrew, the colonel's widow, was not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed clearly a case wherein the fullness of professional knowledge might need the supplement of quackery. Lady Chettam, who attributed her own remarkable health to home-made bitters united with constant medical attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs. Renfrew's account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her case of all strengthening medicines. "Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear?" said the mild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs. Cadwallader, reflectively, when Mrs. Renfrew's attention was called "Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce-reduce the disease, you know, if you are right, my dear. And I think what you say is reasonable." "Certainly it is reasonable. You have two sorts of potatoes, fed on the same soil. One of them grows more and more watery-" "Ah! like this poor Mrs. Renfrew-that is what I think. Dropsy! There is no swelling yet-it is inward. I should say she ought to take drying medicines, shouldn't you?-or a dry hot-air bath. Many things might be tried, of a drying nature.' "Let her try a certain person's pamphlets," said Mrs. Cadwallader in an under-tone, seeing the gentlemen enter. "He does not want drying." "Who, my dear?" said Lady Chettam a charming woman, not so quick as to nullify the pleasure of explanation. "The bridegroom-Casaubon. He has certainly been drying up faster since the engagement: the flame of passion, I suppose." "I should think he is far from having a good constitution," said Lady Chettam, with a still deeper under-tone. "And then his studies-so very dry, as you say." 66 Really, by the side of Sir James, he looks like a death's-head skinned over for the occasion. Mark my words: in a year from this time that girl will hate him. She looks up to him as an oracle now, and by-and-by she will be at the other extreme. All flightiness!" "How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. But tell me you know all about him is there any thing very bad? What is the truth?" "The truth? he is as bad as the wrong physic -nasty to take, and sure to disagree." "There could not be any thing worse than that," said Lady Chettam, with so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned something exact about Mr. Casaubon's disadvantages. "However, James will hear nothing against Miss Brooke. He says she is the mirror of women still." "That is a generous make-believe of his. Depend upon it, he likes little Celia better, and she appreciates him. I hope you like my little Celia ?" "Certainly; she is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, though not so fine a figure. But we were talking of physic: tell me about this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfully clever; he certainly looks it—a fine brow indeed." "He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well." "Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland, really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner of that kind. For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you I found poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He was coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss to me his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animated conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!" "She is talking cottages and hospitals with him," said Mrs. Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. "I believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him up." 66 James," said Lady Chettam, when her son came near, "bring Mr. Lydgate and introduce him to me. I want to test him." The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of making Mr. Lydgate's acquaintance, having heard of his success in treating fever on a new plan. Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark, steady eyes gave him impressiveness as a listener. He was as little as possible like the lamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about his toilet and utterance. Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in him. He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar, by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others. He did not approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port-wine and bark. He said "I think so" with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement, that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents. "I am quite pleased with your protégé," she said to Mr. Brooke before going away. "My protégé ?-dear me!-who is that?" said Mr. Brooke. 66 "This young Lydgate, the new doctor. Не seems to me to understand his profession admirably." "Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protégé, you know; only I knew an uncle of his, who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to be first-rate-has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you know-wants to raise the profession." "Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, that sort of thing," resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out Lady Chettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers. "Hang it, do you think that is quite sound? -upsetting the old treatment, which has made Englishmen what they are?" said Mr. Standish. "Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us," said Mr. Bulstrode, who spoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly air. "I, for my part, hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate. I hope to find good reason for confiding the new hospital to his management.' "That is all very fine," replied Mr. Standish, who was not fond of Mr. Bulstrode; "if you like him to try experiments on your hospital patients, and kill a few people for charity, I have no objection. But I am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on me. I like treatment that has been tested a little." "Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment-an experiment, you know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding toward the lawyer. Oh, if you talk in that sense!" said Mr. Standish, with as much disgust at such nonlegal quibbling as a man can well betray toward a valuable client. "I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing me to a skeleton, like poor Grainger," said Mr. Vincy, the mayor-a florid man, who would have served for a study of flesh, in striking contrast with the Franciscan tints of Mr. Bulstrode. "It's an uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the shafts of disease, as somebody saidand I think it a very good expression myself." Mr. Lydgate, of course, was out of hearing. He had quitted the party early, and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the novelty of certain introductions, especially the introduction to Miss Brooke, whose youthful bloom, with her approaching marriage to that faded scholar, and her interest in matters socially useful, gave her the piquancy of an unusual combination. CHAPTER XI. "But deeds and language such as men do use, And persons such as comedy would choose When she would show an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes." -BEN JONSON. LYDGATE, in fact, was already conscious of being fascinated by a woman strikingly different from Miss Brooke: he did not in the least suppose that he had lost his balance and fallen in love, but he had said of that particular woman, "She is grace itself; she is perfectly lovely and accomplished. That is what a woman ought to be: she ought to produce the effect of exquisite music." Plain women he regarded as he did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and investigated by science. But Rosamond Vincy seemed to have the true melodic charm; and when a man has seen the woman whom he would have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his. Lydgate believed that he should not marry for several years: not marry until he had trodden out a good clear path for himself away from the broad road which was quite ready made. He had seen Miss Vincy above his horizon almost as long as it had taken Mr. Casaubon to become engaged and married: but this learned gentleman was possessed of a fortune; he had assembled his voluminous notes, and had made that sort of reputation which precedes performance-often the larger part of a man's fame. He took a wife, as we have seen, to adorn the remaining quadrant of his course, and be a little moon that would cause hardly a calculable perturbation. But Lydgate was young, poor, ambitious. He had his half century before him instead of behind him, and he had come to Middlemarch bent on doing many things that were not directly fitted to make his fortune, or even secure him a good income. To a man under such circumstances taking a wife is something more than a question of adornment, however highly he may rate this, and Lydgate was disposed to give it the first place among wifely functions. To his taste, guided by a single conversation, here was the point on which Miss Brooke would be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty. She did not look at things from the proper feminine angle. The so "She is a good creature-that fine girl-but a little too earnest," he thought. "It is trouble-ciety of such women was about as relaxing as some to talk to such women. They are always wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle things after their own taste." Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any more than Mr. Chichely's. Considered, indeed, in relation to the latter, whose mind was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated to shock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine young women to purple-faced bachelors. But Lydgate was less ripe, and might possibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion as to the most excellent things in woman. Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemen under her maiden name. Not long after that dinner-party she had become Mrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome. going from your work to teach the second form, instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes, and blue eyes for a heaven. Certainly nothing at present could seem much less important to Lydgate than the turn of Miss Brooke's mind, or to Miss Brooke than the qualities of the woman who had attracted this young surgeon. But any one watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we look at our unintroduced neighbor. Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personæ folded in her hand. Old provincial society had its share of this subtile movement: had not only its striking downfalls, its brilliant young professional dandies who ended by living up an entry with a drab and six children for their establishment, but also scended a little, having taken an innkeeper's those less marked vicissitudes which are constantly shifting the boundaries of social intercourse, and begetting new consciousness of interdependence. Some slipped a little downward, some got higher footing: people denied aspirates, gained wealth, and fastidious gentlemen stood for boroughs; some were caught in political currents, some in ecclesiastical, and perhaps found themselves surprisingly grouped in consequence; while a few personages or families that stood with rocky firmness amidst all this fluctuation were slowly presenting new aspects in spite of solidity, and altering with the double change of self and beholder. Municipal town and rural parish gradually made fresh threads of connection-gradually, as the old stocking gave way to the savings-bank, and the worship of the solar guinea became extinct; while squires and baronets, and even lords who had once lived blamelessly afar from the civic mind, gathered the faultiness of closer acquaintanceship. Settlers, too, came from distant counties, some with an alarming novelty of skill, others with an offensive advantage in cunning. In fact, much the same sort of movement and mixture went on in old England as we find in older Herodotus, who also, in telling what had been, thought it well to take a woman's lot for his starting-point; though Io, as a maiden apparently beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, who had excellent taste in costume, with that nymph-like figure and pure blondeness which give the largest range to choice in the flow and color of drapery. But these things made only part of her charm. She was admitted to be the flower of Mrs. Lemon's school, the chief school in the county, where the teaching included all that was demanded in the accomplished female-even to extras, such as the getting in and out of a carriage. Mrs. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy as an example: no pupil, she said, exceeded that young lady for mental acquisition and propriety of speech, while her musical execution was quite exceptional. We can not help the way in which people speak of us, and probably if Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet or Imogen, these heroines would not have seemed poetical. The first vision of Rosamond would have been enough with most judges to dispel any prejudice excited by Mrs. Lemon's praise. That table often remained covered with the relics of the family breakfast long after Mr. Vincy had gone with his second son to the warehouse, and when Miss Morgan was already far on in morning lessons with the younger girls in the school-room. It awaited the family laggard, who found any sort of inconvenience (to others) less disagreeable than getting up when he was called. This was the case one morning of the October in which we have lately seen Mr. Casaubon visiting the Grange; and though the room was a little overheated with the fire, which had sent the spaniel panting to a remote corner, Rosamond, for some reason, continued to sit with her embroidery longer than usual, now and then giving herself a little shake, and laying her work on Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch her knee to contemplate it with an air of hesiwithout having that agreeable vision, or even tating weariness. Her mamma, who had rewithout making the acquaintance of the Vincy turned from an excursion to the kitchen, sat on family; for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice the other side of the small work-table with an air he had paid something to enter on, had not been of more entire placidity, until, the clock again their doctor (Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering giving notice that it was going to strike, she system adopted by him), he had many patients looked up from the lace-mending which was ocamong their connections and acquaintances.cupying her plump fingers and rang the bell. For who of any consequence in Middlemarch Knock at Mr. Fred's door again, Pritchard, was not connected, or at least acquainted, with and tell him it has struck half past ten." the Vincys? They were old manufacturers, and This was said without any change in the rahad kept a good house for three generations, indiant good humor of Mrs. Vincy's face, in which which there had naturally been much intermar- forty-five years had delved neither angles nor rying with neighbors more or less decidedly gen- parallels; and pushing back her pink cap-strings, teel. Mr. Vincy's sister had made a wealthy she let her work rest on her lap, while she looked match in accepting Mr. Bulstrode, who, however, admiringly at her daughter. as a man not born in the town, and altogether of "Mamma," said Rosamond, "when Fred dimly known origin, was considered to have done comes down I wish you would not let him have well in uniting himself with a real Middlemarch | red herrings. I can not bear the smell of them family; on the other hand, Mr. Vincy had de- | all over the house at this hour of the morning." 'Oh, my dear, you must allow for young men. Be thankful if they have good hearts. A woman must learn to put up with little things. You will be married some day." "Not to any one who is like Fred." "Don't decry your own brother, my dear. Few young men have less against them, although he couldn't take his degree-I'm sure I can't understand why, for he seems to me most clever. And you know yourself he was thought equal to the best society at college. So particular as you are, my dear, I wonder you are not glad to have such a gentlemanly young man for a brother. You are always finding fault with Bob because he is not Fred." "Oh no, mamma, only because he is Bob." "Well, my dear, you will not find any Middlemarch young man who has not something against him." "But"-here Rosamond's face broke into a smile which suddenly revealed two dimples. She herself thought unfavorably of these dimples, and smiled little in general society. "But I shall not marry any Middlemarch young man.' "So it seems, my love, for you have as good as refused the pick of them; and if there's better to be had, I'm sure there's no girl better deserves it." "Excuse me, mamma-I wish you would not say the 'pick of them. "Why, what else are they?" “I mean, mamma, it is rather a vulgar expression." "Very likely, my dear; I never was a good speaker. What should I say?" "The best of them." 66 Why, that seems just as plain and common. If I had had time to think, I should have said, 'the most superior young men. But with your education you must know." "What must Rosy know, mother?" said Mr. Fred, who had slid in unobserved through the half-open door while the ladies were bending over their work, and now going up to the fire stood with his back toward it, warming the soles of his slippers. "Whether it's right to say 'superior young men,'" said Mrs. Vincy, ringing the bell. "Oh, there are so many superior teas and sugars now! Superior is getting to be shopkeepers' slang." "Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?" said Rosamond, with mild gravity. Only the wrong sort. 66 is slang. It marks a class." "Aha, Miss Rosy, you don't know Homer from slang. I shall invent a new game; I shall write bits of slang and poetry on slips, and give them to you to separate." 66 Dear me, how amusing it is to hear young people talk!" said Mrs. Vincy, with cheerful admiration. "Have you got nothing else for my breakfast, Pritchard?" said Fred to the servant, who brought in coffee and buttered toast, while he walked round the table surveying the ham, potted beef, and other cold remnants with an air of silent rejection, and polite forbearance from signs of disgust. "Should you like eggs, Sir?" "Eggs, no! Bring me a grilled bone." "Really, Fred," said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room, "if you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down earlier. You can get up at six o'clock to go out hunting; I can not understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings." That is your want of understanding, Rosy. I can get up to go hunting because I like it." "What would you think of me if I came down two hours after every one else and ordered grilled bone?" 66 "I should think you were an uncommonly fast young lady," said Fred, eating his toast with the utmost composure. "I can not see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable any more than sisters." "I don't make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so. Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions." "I think it describes the smell of grilled bone." "Not at all. It describes a sensation in your little nose associated with certain finicking notions which are the classics of Mrs. Lemon's school. Look at my mother: you don't see her objecting to every thing except what she does herself. She is my notion of a pleasant woman. "Bless you both, my dears, and don't quarrel," said Mrs. Vincy, with motherly cordiality. Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor. How is your uncle pleased with him?" 66 "Pretty well, I think. He asks Lydgate all sorts of questions, and then screws up his face while he hears the answers, as if they were pinching his toes. That's his way. Ah, here comes my grilled bone!" "But how came you to stay out so late, my dear? You only said you were going to your uncle's." “Oh, I dined at Plymdale's. We had whist. Lydgate was there too." "And what do you think of him? He is very gentlemanly, I suppose. They say he is of excellent family-his relations quite county people." "Yes," said Fred. "There was a Lydgate at John's who spent no end of money. I find All choice of words this man is a second cousin of his. But rich men may have very poor devils for second cousins." "There is correct English: that is not slang." "I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets." "You will say any thing, Fred, to gain your point." "Well, tell me whether it is slang or poetry to call an ox a leg-plaiter. "Of course you can call it poetry if you like." "It always makes a difference, though, to be of good family," said Rosamond, with a tone of decision which showed that she had thought on this subject. Rosamond felt that she might have been happier if she had not been the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer. She disliked any thing which reminded her that her mother's father had been an innkeeper. Certainly any one remembering the fact might think that Mrs. mored landlady, accustomed to the most capricious orders of gentlemen. 66 Vincy had the air of a very handsome, good-hu- | and things,” said Mrs. Vincy, soothingly, stroking her son's head. 'There's a fire in the smokingroom on purpose. It's your father's wish, you know, Fred, my dear-and I always tell him you will be good, and go to college again to take your degree." "I thought it was odd his name was Tertius," said the bright-faced matron; "but of course it's a name in the family. But now tell us exactly what sort of a man he is.' "Oh, tallish, dark, clever-talks well-rather a prig, I think." "I never can make out what you mean by a prig," said Rosamond. "A fellow who wants to show that he has opinions." 66 Why, my dear, doctors must have opinions," said Mrs. Vincy. "What are they there for else ?" "Yes, mother, the opinions they are paid for. But a prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions." "I suppose Mary Garth admires Mr. Lydgate," said Rosamond, not without a touch of innuendo. "Really, I can't say," said Fred, rather glumly, as he left the table, and taking up a novel which he had brought down with him, threw himself into an arm-chair. "If you are jealous of her, go oftener to Stone Court yourself and eclipse her." "I wish, you would not be so vulgar, Fred. If you have finished, pray ring the bell." "It is true, though, what your brother says, Rosamond," Mrs. Vincy began, when the servant had cleared the table. "It is a thousand pities you haven't patience to go and see your uncle more, so proud of you as he is, and wanted you to live with him. There's no knowing what he might have done for you as well as for Fred. God knows, I'm fond of having you at home with me, but I can part with my children for their good. And now it stands to reason that your uncle Featherstone will do something for Mary Garth." 66 Fred drew his mother's hand down to his lips, but said nothing. "I suppose you are not going out riding today?" said Rosamond, lingering a little after her mamma was gone. "No; why?" 66 Papa says I may have the chestnut to ride now." 66 "You can go with me to-morrow, if you like. Only I am going to Stone Court, remember." "I want the ride so much, it is indifferent to me where we go." Rosamond really wished to go to Stone Court, of all other places. "Oh, I say, Rosy," said Fred, as she was passing out of the room, "if you are going to the piano, let me come and play some airs with you." 66 Pray do not ask me this morning." "Why not this morning?" "Really, Fred, I wish you would leave off playing the flute. A man looks very silly playing the flute. And you play so out of tune. So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of "Ar hyd y nos," "Ye banks and braes," and other favorite airs from his "Instructor on the Flute;" a wheezy performance, Mary Garth can bear being at Stone Court, into which he threw much ambition and an irrebecause she likes that better than being a gov-pressible hopefulness. erness," said Rosamond, folding up her work. "I would rather not have any thing left to me if I must earn it by enduring much of my uncle's cough and his ugly relations." CHAPTER XII. "He had more tow on his distaffe -CHAUCER. "He can't be long for this world, my dear; I wouldn't hasten his end, but what with asthma and that inward complaint, let us hope there is something better for him in another. And I THE ride to Stone Court, which Fred and Rohave no ill-will toward Mary Garth, but there's samond took the next morning, lay through a justice to be thought of. And Mr. Featherstone's pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadfirst wife brought him no money, as my sister did.ows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed Her nieces and nephews can't have so much claim as my sister's. And I must say I think Mary Garth a dreadful plain girl-more fit for a governess. 66 Every one would not agree with you there, mother," said Fred, who seemed to be able to read and listen too. 66 66 to grow in bushy beauty, and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. Little details gave each field a particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from childhood: the pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in mid-pasture; the high bank Well, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, wheeling where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope of skillfully, if she had some fortune left her-a the old marl-pit making a red background for man marries his wife's relations, and the Garths the burdock; the huddled roofs and ricks of the are so poor, and live in such a small way. But homestead without a traceable way of approach; I shall leave you to your studies, my dear, for I the gray gate and fences against the depths of the must go and do some shopping.' bordering wood; and the stray hovel, its old, old "Fred's studies are not very deep," said Rosa-thatch full of mossy hills and valleys, with wonmond, rising with her mamma; "he is only read-drous modulations of light and shadow, such as ing a novel." we travel far to see in later life, and see larger, "Well, well, by-and-by he'll go to his Latin but not more beautiful. These are the things that |