“Shall we not walk in the garden now?” said Dorothea.

“And you would like to see the church, you know,” said Mr. Brooke.  “It is a droll little church.  And the village.  It all lies in a nut-shell.  By the way, it will suit you, Dorothea; for the cottages are like a row of alms-houses—­little gardens, gilly-flowers, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, please,” said Dorothea, looking at Mr. Casaubon, “I should like to see all that.”  She had got nothing from him more graphic about the Lowick cottages than that they were “not bad.”

They were soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest way to the church, Mr. Casaubon said.  At the little gate leading into the churchyard there was a pause while Mr. Casaubon went to the parsonage close by to fetch a key.  Celia, who had been hanging a little in the rear, came up presently, when she saw that Mr. Casaubon was gone away, and said in her easy staccato, which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of any malicious intent—­

“Do you know, Dorothea, I saw some one quite young coming up one of the walks.”

“Is that astonishing, Celia?”

“There may be a young gardener, you know—­why not?” said Mr. Brooke.  “I told Casaubon he should change his gardener.”

“No, not a gardener,” said Celia; “a gentleman with a sketch-book.  He had light-brown curls.  I only saw his back.  But he was quite young.”

“The curate’s son, perhaps,” said Mr. Brooke.  “Ah, there is Casaubon again, and Tucker with him.  He is going to introduce Tucker.  You don’t know Tucker yet.”

Mr. Tucker was the middle-aged curate, one of the “inferior clergy,” who are usually not wanting in sons.  But after the introduction, the conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but Celia.  She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as old and musty-looking as she would have expected Mr. Casaubon’s curate to be; doubtless an excellent man who would go to heaven (for Celia wished not to be unprincipled), but the corners of his mouth were so unpleasant.  Celia thought with some dismalness of the time she should have to spend as bridesmaid at Lowick, while the curate had probably no pretty little children whom she could like, irrespective of principle.

Mr. Tucker was invaluable in their walk; and perhaps Mr. Casaubon had not been without foresight on this head, the curate being able to answer all Dorothea’s questions about the villagers and the other parishioners.  Everybody, he assured her, was well off in Lowick:  not a cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig, and the strips of garden at the back were well tended.  The small boys wore excellent corduroy, the girls went out as tidy servants, or