And now, since her conversation with Will, many fresh images had

gathered round that Aunt Julia who was Will's grandmother; the presence

of that delicate miniature, so like a living face that she knew,

helping to concentrate her feelings. What a wrong, to cut off the girl

from the family protection and inheritance only because she had chosen

a man who was poor! Dorothea, early troubling her elders with

questions about the facts around her, had wrought herself into some

independent clearness as to the historical, political reasons why

eldest sons had superior rights, and why land should be entailed: those

reasons, impressing her with a certain awe, might be weightier than she

knew, but here was a question of ties which left them uninfringed.

Here was a daughter whose child--even according to the ordinary aping

of aristocratic institutions by people who are no more aristocratic

than retired grocers, and who have no more land to "keep together" than

a lawn and a paddock--would have a prior claim. Was inheritance a

question of liking or of responsibility? All the energy of Dorothea's

nature went on the side of responsibility--the fulfilment of claims

founded on our own deeds, such as marriage and parentage.

It was true, she said to herself, that Mr. Casaubon had a debt to the

Ladislaws--that he had to pay back what the Ladislaws had been wronged

of. And now she began to think of her husband's will, which had been

made at the time of their marriage, leaving the bulk of his property to

her, with proviso in case of her having children. That ought to be

altered; and no time ought to be lost. This very question which had

just arisen about Will Ladislaw's occupation, was the occasion for

placing things on a new, right footing. Her husband, she felt sure,

according to all his previous conduct, would be ready to take the just

view, if she proposed it--she, in whose interest an unfair

concentration of the property had been urged. His sense of right had

surmounted and would continue to surmount anything that might be called

antipathy. She suspected that her uncle's scheme was disapproved by

Mr. Casaubon, and this made it seem all the more opportune that a fresh

understanding should be begun, so that instead of Will's starting

penniless and accepting the first function that offered itself, he

should find himself in possession of a rightful income which should be

paid by her husband during his life, and, by an immediate alteration of

the will, should be secured at his death. The vision of all this as

what ought to be done seemed to Dorothea like a sudden letting in of

daylight, waking her from her previous stupidity and incurious

self-absorbed ignorance about her husband's relation to others. Will

Ladislaw had refused Mr. Casaubon's future aid on a ground that no

longer appeared right to her; and Mr. Casaubon had never himself seen

fully what was the claim upon him. "But he will!" said Dorothea. "The

great strength of his character lies here. And what are we doing with

our money? We make no use of half of our income. My own money buys me

nothing but an uneasy conscience."




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