“You don’t really know?” said Rosamond,
no longer playful, and desiring nothing better than
to tell in order that she might evoke effects.
“No!” he returned, impatiently.
“Don’t know that Mr. Casaubon has left
it in his will that if Mrs. Casaubon marries you she
is to forfeit all her property?”
“How do you know that it is true?” said
Will, eagerly.
“My brother Fred heard it from the Farebrothers.”
Will started up from his chair and reached his hat.
“I dare say she likes you better than the property,”
said Rosamond, looking at him from a distance.
“Pray don’t say any more about it,”
said Will, in a hoarse undertone extremely unlike
his usual light voice. “It is a foul insult
to her and to me.” Then he sat down absently,
looking before him, but seeing nothing.
“Now you are angry with me,” said
Rosamond. “It is too bad to bear me
malice. You ought to be obliged to me for telling
you.”
“So I am,” said Will, abruptly, speaking
with that kind of double soul which belongs to dreamers
who answer questions.
“I expect to hear of the marriage,” said
Rosamond, playfully.
“Never! You will never hear of the marriage!”
With those words uttered impetuously, Will rose, put
out his hand to Rosamond, still with the air of a
somnambulist, and went away.
When he was gone, Rosamond left her chair and walked
to the other end of the room, leaning when she got
there against a chiffonniere, and looking out of the
window wearily. She was oppressed by ennui,
and by that dissatisfaction which in women’s
minds is continually turning into a trivial jealousy,
referring to no real claims, springing from no deeper
passion than the vague exactingness of egoism, and
yet capable of impelling action as well as speech.
“There really is nothing to care for much,”
said poor Rosamond inwardly, thinking of the family
at Quallingham, who did not write to her; and that
perhaps Tertius when he came home would tease her
about expenses. She had already secretly disobeyed
him by asking her father to help them, and he had
ended decisively by saying, “I am more likely
to want help myself.”
Good phrases are surely, and ever
were, very commendable.
—Justice
Shallow.
A few days afterwards—it was already the
end of August—there was an occasion which
caused some excitement in Middlemarch: the public,
if it chose, was to have the advantage of buying,
under the distinguished auspices of Mr. Borthrop Trumbull,
the furniture, books, and pictures which anybody might
see by the handbills to be the best in every kind,
belonging to Edwin Larcher, Esq. This was not
one of the sales indicating the depression of trade;
on the contrary, it was due to Mr. Larcher’s
great success in the carrying business, which warranted
his purchase of a mansion near Riverston already furnished
