"It is only this conduct of Brooke's. I really think somebody should

speak to him."

"What? meaning to stand?" said Mr. Cadwallader, going on with the

arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning. "I hardly

think he means it. But where's the harm, if he likes it? Any one who

objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the

strongest fellow. They won't overturn the Constitution with our friend

Brooke's head for a battering ram."

"Oh, I don't mean that," said Sir James, who, after putting down his

hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and

examine the sole of his boot with much bitterness. "I mean this

marriage. I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casaubon."

"What is the matter with Casaubon? I see no harm in him--if the girl

likes him."

"She is too young to know what she likes. Her guardian ought to

interfere. He ought not to allow the thing to be done in this headlong

manner. I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader--a man with daughters,

can look at the affair with indifference: and with such a heart as

yours! Do think seriously about it."

"I am not joking; I am as serious as possible," said the Rector, with a

provoking little inward laugh. "You are as bad as Elinor. She has

been wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that

her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she

married me."

"But look at Casaubon," said Sir James, indignantly. "He must be

fifty, and I don't believe he could ever have been much more than the

shadow of a man. Look at his legs!"

"Confound you handsome young fellows! you think of having it all your

own way in the world. You don't under stand women. They don't admire

you half so much as you admire yourselves. Elinor used to tell her

sisters that she married me for my ugliness--it was so various and

amusing that it had quite conquered her prudence."

"You! it was easy enough for a woman to love you. But this is no

question of beauty. I don't like Casaubon." This was Sir James's

strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character.

"Why? what do you know against him?" said the Rector laying down his

reels, and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of

attention.

Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons:

it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being

told, since he only felt what was reasonable. At last he said--




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