Middlemarch (version 2) — Chapter 49

“Would not that be a sacrifice of higher prospects for you?

” said Dorothea.

“Perhaps; but I have always been blamed for thinking of prospects, and not settling to anything.

And here is something offered to me.

If you would not like me to accept it, I will give it up.

Otherwise I would rather stay in this part of the country than go away.

I belong to nobody anywhere else.

” “I should like you to stay very much,” said Dorothea, at once, as simply and readily as she had spoken at Rome.

There was not the shadow of a reason in her mind at the moment why she should not say so.

“Then I _will_ stay,” said Ladislaw, shaking his head backward, rising and going towards the window, as if to see whether the rain had ceased.

But the next moment, Dorothea, according to a habit which was getting continually stronger, began to reflect that her husband felt differently from herself, and she colored deeply under the double embarrassment of having expressed what might be in opposition to her husband’s feeling, and of having to suggest this opposition to Will.

His face was not turned towards her, and this made it easier to say— “But my opinion is of little consequence on such a subject.

I think you should be guided by Mr. Casaubon.

I spoke without thinking of anything else than my own feeling, which has nothing to do with the real question.

But it now occurs to me—perhaps Mr. Casaubon might see that the proposal was not wise.

Can you not wait now and mention it to him?

” “I can’t wait to-day,” said Will, inwardly seared by the possibility that Mr. Casaubon would enter.

“The rain is quite over now.

I told Mr. Brooke not to call for me: I would rather walk the five miles.

I shall strike across Halsell Common, and see the gleams on the wet grass.

I

like that.

” He approached her to shake hands quite hurriedly, longing but not daring to say, “Don’t mention the subject to Mr. Casaubon.

” No, he dared not, could not say it.

To ask her to be less simple and direct would be like breathing on the crystal that you want to see the light through.

And there was always the other great dread—of himself becoming dimmed and forever ray-shorn in her eyes.

“I wish you could have stayed,” said Dorothea, with a touch of mournfulness, as she rose and put out her hand.

She also had her thought which she did not like to express:—Will certainly ought to lose no time in consulting Mr. Casaubon’s wishes, but for her to urge this might seem an undue dictation.

So they only said “Good-by,” and Will quitted the house, striking across the fields so as not to run any risk of encountering Mr. Casaubon’s carriage, which, however, did not appear at the gate until four o’clock.

That was an unpropitious hour for coming home: it was too early to gain the moral support under ennui of dressing his person for dinner, and too late to undress his mind of the day’s frivolous ceremony and affairs, so as to be prepared for a good plunge into the serious business of study.

On such occasions he usually threw into an easy-chair in the library, and allowed Dorothea to read the London papers to him, closing his eyes the while.

To-day, however, he declined that relief, observing that he had already had too many public details urged upon him; but he spoke more cheerfully than usual, when Dorothea asked about his fatigue, and added with that air of formal effort which never forsook him even when he spoke without his waistcoat and cravat— “I have had the gratification of meeting my former acquaintance, Dr. Spanning, to-day, and of being praised by one who is himself a worthy recipient of praise.

He spoke very handsomely of my late tractate on the Egyptian Mysteries,—using, in fact, terms which it would not become me to repeat.

” In uttering the last clause, Mr. Casaubon leaned over the elbow of his chair, and swayed his head up and down, apparently as a muscular outlet instead of that recapitulation which would not have been becoming.

“I am very glad you have had that pleasure,” said Dorothea, delighted to see her husband less weary than usual at this hour.

“Before you came I had been regretting that you happened to be out to-day.

” “Why so, my dear?

” said Mr. Casaubon, throwing himself backward again.

“Because Mr. Ladislaw has been here; and he has mentioned a proposal of my uncle’s which I should like to know your opinion of.

” Her husband she felt was really concerned in this question.

Even with her ignorance of the world she had a vague impression that the position offered to Will was out of keeping with his family connections, and certainly Mr. Casaubon had a claim to be consulted.

He did not speak, but merely bowed.

“Dear uncle, you know, has many projects.

It appears that he has bought one of the Middlemarch newspapers, and he has asked Mr. Ladislaw to stay in this neighborhood and conduct the paper for him, besides helping him in other ways.

” Dorothea looked at her husband while she spoke, but he had at first blinked and finally closed his eyes, as if to save them; while his lips became more tense.

“What is your opinion?

” she added, rather timidly, after a slight pause.

“Did Mr. Ladislaw come on purpose to ask my opinion?

” said Mr. Casaubon, opening his eyes narrowly with a knife-edged look at Dorothea.

She was really uncomfortable on the point he inquired about, but she only became a little more serious, and her eyes did not swerve.

“No,” she answered immediately, “he did not say that he came to ask your opinion.

But when he mentioned the proposal, he of course expected me to tell you of it.

” Mr. Casaubon was silent.

“I feared that you might feel some objection.

But certainly a young man with so much talent might be very useful to my uncle—might help him to do good in a better way.

And Mr. Ladislaw wishes to have some fixed occupation.

He has been blamed, he says, for not seeking something of that kind, and he would like to stay in this neighborhood because no one cares for him elsewhere.

” Dorothea felt that this was a consideration to soften her husband.

However, he did not speak, and she presently recurred to Dr. Spanning and the Archdeacon’s breakfast.

But there was no longer sunshine on these subjects.

The next morning, without Dorothea’s knowledge, Mr. Casaubon despatched the following letter, beginning “Dear Mr. Ladislaw” (he had always before addressed him as “Will”):— “Mrs. Casaubon informs me that a proposal has been made to you, and (according to an inference by no means stretched) has on your part been in some degree entertained, which involves your residence in this neighborhood in a capacity which I am justified in saying touches my own position in such a way as renders it not only natural and warrantable in me when that effect is viewed under the influence of legitimate feeling, but incumbent on me when the same effect is considered in the light of my responsibilities, to state at once that your acceptance of the proposal above indicated would be highly offensive to me.

That I have some claim to the exercise of a veto here, would not, I believe, be denied by any reasonable person cognizant of the relations between us: relations which, though thrown into the past by your recent procedure, are not thereby annulled in their character of determining antecedents.

I will not here make reflections on any person’s judgment.

It is enough for me to point out to yourself that there are certain social fitnesses and proprieties which should hinder a somewhat near relative of mine from becoming any wise conspicuous in this vicinity in a status not only much beneath my own, but associated at best with the sciolism of literary or political adventurers.

At any rate, the contrary issue must exclude you from further reception at my house.

Yours faithfully, “EDWARD CASAUBON.

” Meanwhile Dorothea’s mind was innocently at work towards the further embitterment of her husband; dwelling, with a sympathy that grew to agitation, on what Will had told her about his parents and grandparents.

Any private hours in her day were usually spent in her blue-green boudoir, and she had come to be very fond of its pallid quaintness.

Nothing had been outwardly altered there; but while the summer had gradually advanced over the western fields beyond the avenue of elms, the bare room had gathered within it those memories of an inward life which fill the air as with a cloud of good or bad angels, the invisible yet active forms of our spiritual triumphs or our spiritual falls.

She had been so used to struggle for and to find resolve in looking along the avenue towards the arch of western light that the vision itself had gained a communicating power.

Even the pale stag seemed to have reminding glances and to mean mutely, “Yes, we know.

” And the group of delicately touched miniatures had made an audience as of beings no longer disturbed about their own earthly lot, but still humanly interested.

Especially the mysterious “Aunt Julia” about whom Dorothea had never found it easy to question her husband.

And now, since her conversation with Will, many fresh images had gathered round that Aunt Julia who was Will’s grandmother; the presence of that delicate miniature, so like a living face that she knew, helping to concentrate her feelings.

What a wrong, to cut off the girl from the family protection and inheritance only because she had chosen a man who was poor!

Dorothea, early troubling her elders with questions about the facts around her, had wrought herself into some independent clearness as to the historical, political reasons why eldest sons had superior rights, and why land should be entailed: those reasons, impressing her with a certain awe, might be weightier than she knew, but here was a question of ties which left them uninfringed.

Here was a daughter whose child—even according to the ordinary aping of aristocratic institutions by people who are no more aristocratic than retired grocers, and who have no more land to “keep together” than a lawn and a paddock—would have a prior claim.

Was inheritance a question of liking or of responsibility?

All the energy of Dorothea’s nature went on the side of responsibility—the fulfilment of claims founded on our own deeds, such as marriage and parentage.

It was true, she said to herself, that Mr. Casaubon had a debt to the Ladislaws—that he had to pay back what the Ladislaws had been wronged of.

And now she began to think of her husband’s will, which had been made at the time of their marriage, leaving the bulk of his property to her, with proviso in case of her having children.

That ought to be altered; and no time ought to be lost.

This very question which had just arisen about Will Ladislaw’s occupation, was the occasion for placing things on a new, right footing.

Her husband, she felt sure, according to all his previous conduct, would be ready to take the just view, if she proposed it—she, in whose interest an unfair concentration of the property had been urged.

His sense of right had surmounted and would continue to surmount anything that might be called antipathy.

She suspected that her uncle’s scheme was disapproved by Mr. Casaubon, and this made it seem all the more opportune that a fresh understanding should be begun, so that instead of Will’s starting penniless and accepting the first function that offered itself, he should find himself in possession of a rightful income which should be paid by her husband during his life, and, by an immediate alteration of the will, should be secured at his death.

The vision of all this as what ought to be done seemed to Dorothea like a sudden letting in of daylight, waking her from her previous stupidity and incurious self-absorbed ignorance about her husband’s relation to others.

Will Ladislaw had refused Mr. Casaubon’s future aid on a ground that no longer appeared right to her;

and Mr. Casaubon had never himself seen fully what was the claim upon him.

“But he will!

” said Dorothea.

“The great strength of his character lies here.

And what are we doing with our money?

We make no use of half of our income.

My own money buys me nothing but an uneasy conscience.

” There was a peculiar fascination for Dorothea in this division of property intended for herself, and always regarded by her as excessive.

She was blind, you see, to many things obvious to others—likely to tread in the wrong places, as Celia had warned her; yet her blindness to whatever did not lie in her own pure purpose carried her safely by the side of precipices where vision would have been perilous with fear.

The thoughts which had gathered vividness in the solitude of her boudoir occupied her incessantly through the day on which Mr. Casaubon had sent his letter to Will.

Everything seemed hindrance to her till she could find an opportunity of opening her heart to her husband.

To his preoccupied mind all subjects were to be approached gently, and she had never since his illness lost from her consciousness the dread of agitating him.

But when young ardor is set brooding over the conception of a prompt deed, the deed itself seems to start forth with independent life, mastering ideal obstacles.

The day passed in a sombre fashion, not unusual, though Mr. Casaubon was perhaps unusually silent; but there were hours of the night which might be counted on as opportunities of conversation; for Dorothea, when aware of her husband’s sleeplessness, had established a habit of rising, lighting a candle, and reading him to sleep again.

And this night she was from the beginning sleepless, excited by resolves.

He slept as usual for a few hours, but she had risen softly and had sat in the darkness for nearly an hour before he said— “Dorothea, since you are up, will you light a candle?

” “Do you feel ill, dear?

” was her first question, as she obeyed him.

“No, not at all; but I shall be obliged, since you are up, if you will read me a few pages of Lowth.

” “May I talk to you a little instead?

” said Dorothea.

“Certainly.

” “I have been thinking about money all day—that I have always had too much, and especially the prospect of too much.

” “These, my dear Dorothea, are providential arrangements.

” “But if one has too much in consequence of others being wronged, it seems to me that the divine voice which tells us to set that wrong right must be obeyed.

” “What, my love, is the bearing of your remark?

” “That you have been too liberal in arrangements for me—I mean, with regard to property; and that makes me unhappy.

” “How so?

I have none but comparatively distant connections.

” “I have been led to think about your aunt Julia, and how she was left in poverty only because she married a poor man, an act which was not disgraceful, since he was not unworthy.

It was on that ground, I know, that you educated Mr. Ladislaw and provided for his mother.

” Dorothea waited a few moments for some answer that would help her onward.

None came, and her next words seemed the more forcible to her, falling clear upon the dark silence.

“But surely we should regard his claim as a much greater one, even to the half of that property which I know that you have destined for me.

And I think he ought at once to be provided for on that understanding.

It is not right that he should be in the dependence of poverty while we are rich.

And if there is any objection to the proposal he mentioned, the giving him his true place and his true share would set aside any motive for his accepting it.

” “Mr. Ladislaw has probably been speaking to you on this subject?

” said Mr. Casaubon, with a certain biting quickness not habitual to him.

“Indeed, no!

” said Dorothea, earnestly.

“How can you imagine it, since he has so lately declined everything from you?

I fear you think too hardly of him, dear.

He only told me a little about his parents and grandparents, and almost all in answer to my questions.

You are so good, so just—you have done everything you thought to be right.

But it seems to me clear that more than that is right; and I must speak about it, since I am the person who would get what is called benefit by that ‘more’ not being done.

” There was a perceptible pause before Mr. Casaubon replied, not quickly as before, but with a still more biting emphasis.

“Dorothea, my love, this is not the first occasion, but it were well that it should be the last, on which you have assumed a judgment on subjects beyond your scope.

Into the question how far conduct, especially in the matter of alliances, constitutes a forfeiture of family claims, I do not now enter.

Suffice it, that you are not here qualified to discriminate.

What I now wish you to understand is, that I accept no revision, still less dictation within that range of affairs which I have deliberated upon as distinctly and properly mine.

It is not for you to interfere between me and Mr. Ladislaw, and still less to encourage communications from him to you which constitute a criticism on my procedure.

” Poor Dorothea, shrouded in the darkness, was in a tumult of conflicting emotions.

Alarm at the possible effect on himself of her husband’s strongly manifested anger, would have checked any expression of her own resentment, even if she had been quite free from doubt and compunction under the consciousness that there might be some justice in his last insinuation.

Hearing him breathe quickly after he had spoken, she sat listening, frightened, wretched—with a dumb inward cry for help to bear this nightmare of a life in which every energy was arrested by dread.

But nothing else happened, except that they both remained a long while sleepless, without speaking again.

The next day, Mr. Casaubon received the following answer from Will Ladislaw:— “DEAR MR. CASAUBON,—I have given all due consideration to your letter of yesterday, but I am unable to take precisely your view of our mutual position.

With the fullest acknowledgment of your generous conduct to me in the past, I must still maintain that an obligation of this kind cannot fairly fetter me as you appear to expect that it should.

Granted that a benefactor’s wishes may constitute a claim; there must always be a reservation as to the quality of those wishes.

They may possibly clash with more imperative considerations.

Or a benefactor’s veto might impose such a negation on a man’s life that the consequent blank might be more cruel than the benefaction was generous.

I am merely using strong illustrations.

In the present case I am unable to take your view of the bearing which my acceptance of occupation—not enriching certainly, but not dishonorable—will have on your own position which seems to me too substantial to be affected in that shadowy manner.

And though I do not believe that any change in our relations will occur (certainly none has yet occurred) which can nullify the obligations imposed on me by the past, pardon me for not seeing that those obligations should restrain me from using the ordinary freedom of living where I choose, and maintaining myself by any lawful occupation I may choose.

Regretting that there exists this difference between us as to a relation in which the conferring of benefits has been entirely on your side— I remain, yours with persistent obligation, WILL LADISLAW.

” Poor Mr. Casaubon felt (and must not we, being impartial, feel with him a little?

) that no man had juster cause for disgust and suspicion than he.

Young Ladislaw, he was sure, meant to defy and annoy him, meant to win Dorothea’s confidence and sow her mind with disrespect, and perhaps aversion, towards her husband.

Some motive beneath the surface had been needed to account for Will’s sudden change of course in rejecting Mr. Casaubon’s aid and quitting his travels; and this defiant determination to fix himself in the neighborhood by taking up something so much at variance with his former choice as Mr. Brooke’s Middlemarch projects, revealed clearly enough that the undeclared motive had relation to Dorothea.

Not for one moment did Mr. Casaubon suspect Dorothea of any doubleness: he had no suspicions of her, but he had (what was little less uncomfortable) the positive knowledge that her tendency to form opinions about her husband’s conduct was accompanied with a disposition to regard Will Ladislaw favorably and be influenced by what he said.

His own proud reticence had prevented him from ever being undeceived in the supposition that Dorothea had originally asked her uncle to invite Will to his house.

And now, on receiving Will’s letter, Mr. Casaubon had to consider his duty.

He would never have been easy to call his action anything else than duty; but in this case, contending motives thrust him back into negations.

Should he apply directly to Mr. Brooke, and demand of that troublesome gentleman to revoke his proposal?

Or should he consult Sir James Chettam, and get him to concur in remonstrance against a step which touched the whole family?

In either case Mr. Casaubon was aware that failure was just as probable as success.

It was impossible for him to mention Dorothea’s name in the matter, and without some alarming urgency Mr. Brooke was as likely as not, after meeting all representations with apparent assent, to wind up by saying, “Never fear, Casaubon!

Depend upon it, young Ladislaw will do you credit.

Depend upon it, I have put my finger on the right thing.

” And Mr. Casaubon shrank nervously from communicating on the subject with Sir James Chettam, between whom and himself there had never been any cordiality, and who would immediately think of Dorothea without any mention of her.

Poor Mr. Casaubon was distrustful of everybody’s feeling towards him, especially as a husband.

To let any one suppose that he was jealous would be to admit their (suspected) view of his disadvantages: to let them know that he did not find marriage particularly blissful would imply his conversion to their (probably) earlier disapproval.

It would be as bad as letting Carp, and Brasenose generally, know how backward he was in organizing the matter for his “Key to all Mythologies.

” All through his life Mr. Casaubon had been trying not to admit even to himself the inward sores of self-doubt and jealousy.

And on the most delicate of all personal subjects, the habit of proud suspicious reticence told doubly.

Thus Mr. Casaubon remained proudly, bitterly silent.

But he had forbidden Will to come to Lowick Manor, and he was mentally preparing other measures of frustration.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

“C’est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines;

tôt ou tard il devient efficace.

”—GUIZOT.

Sir James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction on Mr. Brooke’s new courses; but it was easier to object than to hinder.

Sir James accounted for his having come in alone one day to lunch with the Cadwalladers by saying— “I can’t talk to you as I want, before Celia: it might hurt her.

Indeed, it would not be right.

” “I know what you mean—the ‘Pioneer’ at the Grange!

” darted in Mrs. Cadwallader, almost before the last word was off her friend’s tongue.

“It is frightful—this taking to buying whistles and blowing them in everybody’s hearing.

Lying in bed all day and playing at dominoes, like poor Lord Plessy, would be more private and bearable.

” “I see they are beginning to attack our friend Brooke in the ‘Trumpet,’” said the Rector, lounging back and smiling easily, as he would have done if he had been attacked himself.

“There are tremendous sarcasms against a landlord not a hundred miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own rents, and makes no returns.

” “I do wish Brooke would leave that off,” said Sir James, with his little frown of annoyance.

“Is he really going to be put in nomination, though?

” said Mr. Cadwallader.

“I saw Farebrother yesterday—he’s Whiggish himself, hoists Brougham and Useful Knowledge; that’s the worst I know of him;—and he says that Brooke is getting up a pretty strong party.

Bulstrode, the banker, is his foremost man.

But he thinks Brooke would come off badly at a nomination.

” “Exactly,” said Sir James, with earnestness.

“I have been inquiring into the thing, for I’ve never known anything about Middlemarch politics before—the county being my business.

What Brooke trusts to, is that they are going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite.

But Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is sure to be Bagster, one of those candidates who come from heaven knows where, but dead against Ministers, and an experienced Parliamentary man.

Hawley’s rather rough: he forgot that he was speaking to me.

He said if Brooke wanted a pelting, he could get it cheaper than by going to the hustings.

” “I warned you all of it,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her hands outward.

“I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr. Brooke is going to make a splash in the mud.

And now he has done it.

” “Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry,” said the Rector.

“That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation with politics.

” “He may do that afterwards,” said Mrs. Cadwallader—“when he has come out on the other side of the mud with an ague.

” “What I care for most is his own dignity,” said Sir James.

“Of course I care the more because of the family.

But he’s getting on in life now, and I don’t like to think of his exposing himself.

They will be raking up everything against him.

” “I suppose it’s no use trying any persuasion,” said the Rector.

“There’s such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke.

Have you tried him on the subject?

” “Well, no,” said Sir James; “I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate.

But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is making a factotum of.

Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything.

I thought it as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke’s standing this time.

I think he’ll turn him round: I think the nomination may be staved off.

” “I know,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, nodding.

“The independent member hasn’t got his speeches well enough by heart.

” “But this Ladislaw—there again is a vexatious business,” said Sir James.

“We have had him two or three times to dine at the Hall (you have met him, by the bye) as Brooke’s guest and a relation of Casaubon’s, thinking he was only on a flying visit.

And now I find he’s in everybody’s mouth in Middlemarch as the editor of the ‘Pioneer.

’ There are stories going about him as a quill-driving alien, a foreign emissary, and what not.

” “Casaubon won’t like that,” said the Rector.

“There _is_ some foreign blood in Ladislaw,” returned Sir James.

“I hope he won’t go into extreme opinions and carry Brooke on.

” “Oh, he’s a dangerous young sprig, that Mr. Ladislaw,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, “with his opera songs and his ready tongue.

A sort of Byronic hero—an amorous conspirator, it strikes me.

And Thomas Aquinas is not fond of him.

I could see that, the day the picture was brought.

” “I don’t like to begin on the subject with Casaubon,” said Sir James.

“He has more right to interfere than I. But it’s a disagreeable affair all round.

What a character for anybody with decent connections to show himself in!

—one of those newspaper fellows!

You have only to look at Keck, who manages the ‘Trumpet.

’ I saw him the other day with Hawley.

His writing is sound enough, I believe, but he’s such a low fellow, that I wished he had been on the wrong side.

” “What can you expect with these peddling Middlemarch papers?

” said the Rector.

“I don’t suppose you could get a high style of man anywhere to be writing up interests he doesn’t really care about, and for pay that hardly keeps him in at elbows.

” “Exactly: that makes it so annoying that Brooke should have put a man who has a sort of connection with the family in a position of that kind.

For my part, I think Ladislaw is rather a fool for accepting.

” “It is Aquinas’s fault,” said Mrs. Cadwallader.

“Why didn’t he use his interest to get Ladislaw made an _attache_ or sent to India?

That is how families get rid of troublesome sprigs.

” “There is no knowing to what lengths the mischief may go,” said Sir James, anxiously.

“But if Casaubon says nothing, what can I do?

” “Oh my dear Sir James,” said the Rector, “don’t let us make too much of all this.

It is likely enough to end in mere smoke.

After a month or two Brooke and this Master Ladislaw will get tired of each other;

Ladislaw will take wing; Brooke will sell the ‘Pioneer,’ and everything will settle down again as usual.

” “There is one good chance—that he will not like to feel his money oozing away,” said Mrs. Cadwallader.

“If I knew the items of election expenses I could scare him.

It’s no use plying him with wide words like Expenditure: I wouldn’t talk of phlebotomy, I would empty a pot of leeches upon him.

What we good stingy people don’t like, is having our sixpences sucked away from us.

” “And he will not like having things raked up against him,” said Sir James.

“There is the management of his estate.

They have begun upon that already.

And it really is painful for me to see.

It is a nuisance under one’s very nose.

I do think one is bound to do the best for one’s land and tenants, especially in these hard times.

” “Perhaps the ‘Trumpet’ may rouse him to make a change, and some good may come of it all,” said the Rector.

“I know I should be glad.

I

should hear less grumbling when my tithe is paid.

I don’t know what I should do if there were not a modus in Tipton.

” “I want him to have a proper man to look after things—I want him to take on Garth again,” said Sir James.

“He got rid of Garth twelve years ago, and everything has been going wrong since.

I think of getting Garth to manage for me—he has made such a capital plan for my buildings; and Lovegood is hardly up to the mark.

But Garth would not undertake the Tipton estate again unless Brooke left it entirely to him.

” “In the right of it too,” said the Rector.

“Garth is an independent fellow: an original, simple-minded fellow.

One day, when he was doing some valuation for me, he told me point-blank that clergymen seldom understood anything about business, and did mischief when they meddled;

but he said it as quietly and respectfully as if he had been talking to me about sailors.

He would make a different parish of Tipton, if Brooke would let him manage.

I wish, by the help of the ‘Trumpet,’ you could bring that round.

” “If Dorothea had kept near her uncle, there would have been some chance,” said Sir James.

“She might have got some power over him in time, and she was always uneasy about the estate.

She had wonderfully good notions about such things.

But now Casaubon takes her up entirely.

Celia complains a good deal.

We can hardly get her to dine with us, since he had that fit.

” Sir James ended with a look of pitying disgust, and Mrs. Cadwallader shrugged her shoulders as much as to say that _she_ was not likely to see anything new in that direction.

“Poor Casaubon!

” the Rector said.

“That was a nasty attack.

I thought he looked shattered the other day at the Archdeacon’s. ” “In point of fact,” resumed Sir James, not choosing to dwell on “fits,” “Brooke doesn’t mean badly by his tenants or any one else, but he has got that way of paring and clipping at expenses.

” “Come, that’s a blessing,” said Mrs. Cadwallader.

“That helps him to find himself in a morning.

He may not know his own opinions, but he does know his own pocket.

” “I don’t believe a man is in pocket by stinginess on his land,” said Sir James.

“Oh, stinginess may be abused like other virtues: it will not do to keep one’s own pigs lean,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, who had risen to look out of the window.

“But talk of an independent politician and he will appear.

” “What!

Brooke?

” said her husband.

“Yes.

Now, you ply him with the ‘Trumpet,’ Humphrey; and I will put the leeches on him.

What will you do, Sir James?