"But Sir Walter Scott--I suppose Mr. Lydgate knows him," said young

Plymdale, a little cheered by this advantage.

"Oh, I read no literature now," said Lydgate, shutting the book, and

pushing it away. "I read so much when I was a lad, that I suppose it

will last me all my life. I used to know Scott's poems by heart."

"I should like to know when you left off," said Rosamond, "because then

I might be sure that I knew something which you did not know."

"Mr. Lydgate would say that was not worth knowing," said Mr. Ned,

purposely caustic.

"On the contrary," said Lydgate, showing no smart; but smiling with

exasperating confidence at Rosamond. "It would be worth knowing by the

fact that Miss Vincy could tell it me."

Young Plymdale soon went to look at the whist-playing, thinking that

Lydgate was one of the most conceited, unpleasant fellows it had ever

been his ill-fortune to meet.

"How rash you are!" said Rosamond, inwardly delighted. "Do you see

that you have given offence?"

"What! is it Mr. Plymdale's book? I am sorry. I didn't think about

it."

"I shall begin to admit what you said of yourself when you first came

here--that you are a bear, and want teaching by the birds."

"Well, there is a bird who can teach me what she will. Don't I listen

to her willingly?"

To Rosamond it seemed as if she and Lydgate were as good as engaged.

That they were some time to be engaged had long been an idea in her

mind; and ideas, we know, tend to a more solid kind of existence, the

necessary materials being at hand. It is true, Lydgate had the

counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a

shadow cast by other resolves which themselves were capable of

shrinking. Circumstance was almost sure to be on the side of

Rosamond's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through

watchful blue eyes, whereas Lydgate's lay blind and unconcerned as a

jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.

That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a

process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest; and he

wrote out his daily notes with as much precision as usual. The

reveries from which it was difficult for him to detach himself were

ideal constructions of something else than Rosamond's virtues, and the

primitive tissue was still his fair unknown. Moreover, he was

beginning to feel some zest for the growing though half-suppressed feud

between him and the other medical men, which was likely to become more

manifest, now that Bulstrode's method of managing the new hospital was

about to be declared; and there were various inspiriting signs that his

non-acceptance by some of Peacock's patients might be counterbalanced

by the impression he had produced in other quarters. Only a few days

later, when he had happened to overtake Rosamond on the Lowick road and

had got down from his horse to walk by her side until he had quite

protected her from a passing drove, he had been stopped by a servant on

horseback with a message calling him in to a house of some importance

where Peacock had never attended; and it was the second instance of

this kind. The servant was Sir James Chettam's, and the house was

Lowick Manor.




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