“True,” said Dorothea. “It
is hard to imagine what sort of notions our farmers
and laborers get from their teaching. I have
been looking into a volume of sermons by Mr. Tyke:
such sermons would be of no use at Lowick—I
mean, about imputed righteousness and the prophecies
in the Apocalypse. I have always been thinking
of the different ways in which Christianity is taught,
and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider
blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest—I
mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds,
and brings in the most people as sharers in it.
It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn
too much. But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother
and hear him preach.”
“Do,” said Lydgate; “I trust to
the effect of that. He is very much beloved,
but he has his enemies too: there are always
people who can’t forgive an able man for differing
from them. And that money-winning business is
really a blot. You don’t, of course, see
many Middlemarch people: but Mr. Ladislaw, who
is constantly seeing Mr. Brooke, is a great friend
of Mr. Farebrother’s old ladies, and would be
glad to sing the Vicar’s praises. One of
the old ladies—Miss Noble, the aunt—is
a wonderfully quaint picture of self-forgetful goodness,
and Ladislaw gallants her about sometimes. I
met them one day in a back street: you know Ladislaw’s
look—a sort of Daphnis in coat and waistcoat;
and this little old maid reaching up to his arm—they
looked like a couple dropped out of a romantic comedy.
But the best evidence about Farebrother is to see
him and hear him.”
Happily Dorothea was in her private sitting-room when
this conversation occurred, and there was no one present
to make Lydgate’s innocent introduction of Ladislaw
painful to her. As was usual with him in matters
of personal gossip, Lydgate had quite forgotten Rosamond’s
remark that she thought Will adored Mrs. Casaubon.
At that moment he was only caring for what would recommend
the Farebrother family; and he had purposely given
emphasis to the worst that could be said about the
Vicar, in order to forestall objections. In the
weeks since Mr. Casaubon’s death he had hardly
seen Ladislaw, and he had heard no rumor to warn him
that Mr. Brooke’s confidential secretary was
a dangerous subject with Mrs. Casaubon. When
he was gone, his picture of Ladislaw lingered in her
mind and disputed the ground with that question of
the Lowick living. What was Will Ladislaw thinking
about her? Would he hear of that fact which
made her cheeks burn as they never used to do?
And how would he feel when he heard it?—But
she could see as well as possible how he smiled down
at the little old maid. An Italian with white
mice!—on the contrary, he was a creature
who entered into every one’s feelings, and could
take the pressure of their thought instead of urging
his own with iron resistance.
