Clearly, there would be no interference with Miss
Brooke’s marriage through Mr. Cadwallader; and
Sir James felt with some sadness that she was to have
perfect liberty of misjudgment. It was a sign
of his good disposition that he did not slacken at
all in his intention of carrying out Dorothea’s
design of the cottages. Doubtless this persistence
was the best course for his own dignity: but
pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes
us so, any more than vanity makes us witty. She
was now enough aware of Sir James’s position
with regard to her, to appreciate the rectitude of
his perseverance in a landlord’s duty, to which
he had at first been urged by a lover’s complaisance,
and her pleasure in it was great enough to count for
something even in her present happiness. Perhaps
she gave to Sir James Chettam’s cottages all
the interest she could spare from Mr. Casaubon, or
rather from the symphony of hopeful dreams, admiring
trust, and passionate self devotion which that learned
gentleman had set playing in her soul. Hence
it happened that in the good baronet’s succeeding
visits, while he was beginning to pay small attentions
to Celia, he found himself talking with more and more
pleasure to Dorothea. She was perfectly unconstrained
and without irritation towards him now, and he was
gradually discovering the delight there is in frank
kindness and companionship between a man and a woman
who have no passion to hide or confess.
CHAPTER IX.
1st Gent. An ancient land
in ancient oracles
Is called “law-thirsty”:
all the struggle there
Was after order and a perfect rule.
Pray, where lie such lands now? .
. .
2d Gent. Why, where they lay of old—in
human souls.
Mr. Casaubon’s behavior about settlements was
highly satisfactory to Mr. Brooke, and the preliminaries
of marriage rolled smoothly along, shortening the
weeks of courtship. The betrothed bride must
see her future home, and dictate any changes that
she would like to have made there. A woman dictates
before marriage in order that she may have an appetite
for submission afterwards. And certainly, the
mistakes that we male and female mortals make when
we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder
that we are so fond of it.
On a gray but dry November morning Dorothea drove
to Lowick in company with her uncle and Celia.
Mr. Casaubon’s home was the manor-house.
Close by, visible from some parts of the garden, was
the little church, with the old parsonage opposite.
In the beginning of his career, Mr. Casaubon had only
held the living, but the death of his brother had
put him in possession of the manor also. It
had a small park, with a fine old oak here and there,
and an avenue of limes towards the southwest front,
with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground,
so that from the drawing-room windows the glance swept
uninterruptedly along a slope of greensward till the
