Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will had

never been asked to go to Lowick. Mr. Brooke, indeed, confident of

doing everything agreeable which Casaubon, poor fellow, was too much

absorbed to think of, had arranged to bring Ladislaw to Lowick several

times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere on every

opportunity as "a young relative of Casaubon's"). And though Will had

not seen Dorothea alone, their interviews had been enough to restore

her former sense of young companionship with one who was cleverer than

herself, yet seemed ready to be swayed by her. Poor Dorothea before

her marriage had never found much room in other minds for what she

cared most to say; and she had not, as we know, enjoyed her husband's

superior instruction so much as she had expected. If she spoke with

any keenness of interest to Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of

patience as if she had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to

him from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient

sects or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much

of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform her that

she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.

But Will Ladislaw always seemed to see more in what she said than she

herself saw. Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent

woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul.

Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette

opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny

air; and this pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her

husband might think about the introduction of Will as her uncle's

guest. On this subject Mr. Casaubon had remained dumb.

But Will wanted to talk with Dorothea alone, and was impatient of slow

circumstance. However slight the terrestrial intercourse between Dante

and Beatrice or Petrarch and Laura, time changes the proportion of

things, and in later days it is preferable to have fewer sonnets and

more conversation. Necessity excused stratagem, but stratagem was

limited by the dread of offending Dorothea. He found out at last that

he wanted to take a particular sketch at Lowick; and one morning when

Mr. Brooke had to drive along the Lowick road on his way to the county

town, Will asked to be set down with his sketch-book and camp-stool at

Lowick, and without announcing himself at the Manor settled himself to

sketch in a position where he must see Dorothea if she came out to

walk--and he knew that she usually walked an hour in the morning.




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