"Well, my dears," he said, kindly, as they went up to kiss him, "I hope

nothing disagreeable has happened while I have been away."

"No, uncle," said Celia, "we have been to Freshitt to look at the

cottages. We thought you would have been at home to lunch."

"I came by Lowick to lunch--you didn't know I came by Lowick. And I

have brought a couple of pamphlets for you, Dorothea--in the library,

you know; they lie on the table in the library."

It seemed as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, thrilling her

from despair into expectation. They were pamphlets about the early

Church. The oppression of Celia, Tantripp, and Sir James was shaken

off, and she walked straight to the library. Celia went up-stairs. Mr.

Brooke was detained by a message, but when he re-entered the library,

he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the pamphlets which

had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Casaubon's,--taking it in as

eagerly as she might have taken in the scent of a fresh bouquet after a

dry, hot, dreary walk.

She was getting away from Tipton and Freshitt, and her own sad

liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem.

Mr. Brooke sat down in his arm-chair, stretched his legs towards the

wood-fire, which had fallen into a wondrous mass of glowing dice

between the dogs, and rubbed his hands gently, looking very mildly

towards Dorothea, but with a neutral leisurely air, as if he had

nothing particular to say. Dorothea closed her pamphlet, as soon as

she was aware of her uncle's presence, and rose as if to go. Usually

she would have been interested about her uncle's merciful errand on

behalf of the criminal, but her late agitation had made her

absent-minded.

"I came back by Lowick, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not as if with any

intention to arrest her departure, but apparently from his usual

tendency to say what he had said before. This fundamental principle of

human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke. "I lunched there

and saw Casaubon's library, and that kind of thing. There's a sharp

air, driving. Won't you sit down, my dear? You look cold."

Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation. Some times,

when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be

exasperating, it was rather soothing. She threw off her mantle and

bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up

her beautiful hands for a screen. They were not thin hands, or small

hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands. She seemed to be

holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and

to think, which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had

issued in crying and red eyelids.




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