"I have accepted Mr. Casaubon's offer. My uncle brought me the letter

that contained it; he knew about it beforehand."

"I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo," said

Celia, with a slight sob. She never could have thought that she should

feel as she did. There was something funereal in the whole affair, and

Mr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom it

would be indecent to make remarks.

"Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the same

people. I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speak

too strongly of those who don't please me."

In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as

much from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms.

Of course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this

marriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life

and its best objects.

Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy. In

an hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with more

freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the

thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best

share and further all his great ends. Mr. Casaubon was touched with an

unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike

unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)

that he should be the object of it.

"My dear young lady--Miss Brooke--Dorothea!" he said, pressing her hand

between his hands, "this is a happiness greater than I had ever

imagined to be in reserve for me. That I should ever meet with a mind

and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriage

desirable, was far indeed from my conception. You have all--nay, more

than all--those qualities which I have ever regarded as the

characteristic excellences of womanhood. The great charm of your sex

is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein

we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own.

Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: my

satisfactions have been those of the solitary student. I have been

little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now

I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom."

No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the

frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the

cawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude that there

was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the

thin music of a mandolin?




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