“No,” said Lydgate, carelessly, turning
in his chair and rubbing his hair up.
“Do send him word of it, you naughty undutiful
nephew. He will perhaps ask you to take me to
Quallingham; and then you could show me about the
grounds, and I could imagine you there when you were
a boy. Remember, you see me in my home, just
as it has been since I was a child. It is not
fair that I should be so ignorant of yours. But
perhaps you would be a little ashamed of me.
I forgot that.”
Lydgate smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted
the suggestion that the proud pleasure of showing
so charming a bride was worth some trouble.
And now he came to think of it, he would like to see
the old spots with Rosamond.
“I will write to him, then. But my cousins
are bores.”
It seemed magnificent to Rosamond to be able to speak
so slightingly of a baronet’s family, and she
felt much contentment in the prospect of being able
to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.
But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later,
by saying—
“I hope your uncle Sir Godwin will not look
down on Rosy, Mr. Lydgate. I should think he
would do something handsome. A thousand or two
can be nothing to a baronet.”
“Mamma!” said Rosamond, blushing deeply;
and Lydgate pitied her so much that he remained silent
and went to the other end of the room to examine a
print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded.
Mamma had a little filial lecture afterwards, and
was docile as usual. But Rosamond reflected that
if any of those high-bred cousins who were bores,
should be induced to visit Middlemarch, they would
see many things in her own family which might shock
them. Hence it seemed desirable that Lydgate
should by-and-by get some first-rate position elsewhere
than in Middlemarch; and this could hardly be difficult
in the case of a man who had a titled uncle and could
make discoveries. Lydgate, you perceive, had
talked fervidly to Rosamond of his hopes as to the
highest uses of his life, and had found it delightful
to be listened to by a creature who would bring him
the sweet furtherance of satisfying affection—beauty—repose—such
help as our thoughts get from the summer sky and the
flower-fringed meadows.
Lydgate relied much on the psychological difference
between what for the sake of variety I will call goose
and gander: especially on the innate submissiveness
of the goose as beautifully corresponding to the strength
of the gander.
“Thrice happy she that
is so well assured
Unto herself and settled
so in heart
That neither will for
better be allured
Ne fears to worse with
any chance to start,
But like a steddy ship
doth strongly part
The raging waves and
keeps her course aright;
Ne aught for tempest
doth from it depart,
Ne aught for fairer
