did a little straw-plaiting at home:  no looms here, no Dissent; and though the public disposition was rather towards laying by money than towards spirituality, there was not much vice.  The speckled fowls were so numerous that Mr. Brooke observed, “Your farmers leave some barley for the women to glean, I see.  The poor folks here might have a fowl in their pot, as the good French king used to wish for all his people.  The French eat a good many fowls—­skinny fowls, you know.”

“I think it was a very cheap wish of his,” said Dorothea, indignantly.  “Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal virtue?”

“And if he wished them a skinny fowl,” said Celia, “that would not be nice.  But perhaps he wished them to have fat fowls.”

“Yes, but the word has dropped out of the text, or perhaps was subauditum; that is, present in the king’s mind, but not uttered,” said Mr. Casaubon, smiling and bending his head towards Celia, who immediately dropped backward a little, because she could not bear Mr. Casaubon to blink at her.

Dorothea sank into silence on the way back to the house.  She felt some disappointment, of which she was yet ashamed, that there was nothing for her to do in Lowick; and in the next few minutes her mind had glanced over the possibility, which she would have preferred, of finding that her home would be in a parish which had a larger share of the world’s misery, so that she might have had more active duties in it.  Then, recurring to the future actually before her, she made a picture of more complete devotion to Mr. Casaubon’s aims in which she would await new duties.  Many such might reveal themselves to the higher knowledge gained by her in that companionship.

Mr. Tucker soon left them, having some clerical work which would not allow him to lunch at the Hall; and as they were re-entering the garden through the little gate, Mr. Casaubon said—­

“You seem a little sad, Dorothea.  I trust you are pleased with what you have seen.”

“I am feeling something which is perhaps foolish and wrong,” answered Dorothea, with her usual openness—­“almost wishing that the people wanted more to be done for them here.  I have known so few ways of making my life good for anything.  Of course, my notions of usefulness must be narrow.  I must learn new ways of helping people.”

“Doubtless,” said Mr. Casaubon.  “Each position has its corresponding duties.  Yours, I trust, as the mistress of Lowick, will not leave any yearning unfulfilled.”

“Indeed, I believe that,” said Dorothea, earnestly.  “Do not suppose that I am sad.”

“That is well.  But, if you are not tired, we will take another way to the house than that by which we came.”

Dorothea was not at all tired, and a little circuit was made towards a fine yew-tree, the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side of the house.  As they approached it, a figure, conspicuous on a dark background of evergreens, was seated on a bench, sketching the old tree.  Mr. Brooke, who was walking in front with Celia, turned his head, and said—­