This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love

Ages ago in finest ivory;

Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines

Of generous womanhood that fits all time

That too is costly ware; majolica

Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:

The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful

As mere Faience! a table ornament

To suit the richest mounting."

Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally

drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity

such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three

miles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk, she

determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to see

Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt any

depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her, and

whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself. She felt

almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but the

dread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance which would make

her unjust or hard--overcame every scruple. That there had been some

crisis in her husband's mind she was certain: he had the very next day

begun a new method of arranging his notes, and had associated her quite

newly in carrying out his plan. Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores

of patience.

It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in Lowick

Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home, that she

had written beforehand. And he was not at home.

"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea, who had never, that she knew

of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage. Yes,

Mrs. Lydgate was at home.

"I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me. Will you ask her

if she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?"

When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hear

sounds of music through an open window--a few notes from a man's voice

and then a piano bursting into roulades. But the roulades broke off

suddenly, and then the servant came back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would

be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.

When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was a

sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits of the

different ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know, tell us

exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days of mild

autumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch and soft to the

eye. It always seemed to have been lately washed, and to smell of the

sweet hedges--was always in the shape of a pelisse with sleeves hanging

all out of the fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audience

as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right

enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her

simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then

in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold

trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no

dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs.

Casaubon. To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not

mixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or

appearance were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without

satisfaction that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying

_her_. What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the

best judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments at

Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression she

must make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand with her

usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's lovely

bride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance, but

seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle. The gentleman

was too much occupied with the presence of the one woman to reflect on

the contrast between the two--a contrast that would certainly have been

striking to a calm observer. They were both tall, and their eyes were

on a level; but imagine Rosamond's infantine blondness and wondrous

crown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue dress of a fit and fashion so

perfect that no dressmaker could look at it without emotion, a large

embroidered collar which it was to be hoped all beholders would know

the price of, her small hands duly set off with rings, and that

controlled self-consciousness of manner which is the expensive

substitute for simplicity.




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