"Well, make up, make up," said Mr. Standish, jocosely; "you see the

middle-aged fellows early the day."

Mr. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to

incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose.

The Miss Vincy who had the honor of being Mr. Chichely's ideal was of

course not present; for Mr. Brooke, always objecting to go too far,

would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a

Middlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. The

feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs.

Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs. Renfrew, the colonel's widow, was

not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on

the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed

clearly a case wherein the fulness of professional knowledge might need

the supplement of quackery. Lady Chettam, who attributed her own

remarkable health to home-made bitters united with constant medical

attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs.

Renfrew's account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her

case of all, strengthening medicines.

"Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear?" said the

mild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs. Cadwallader reflectively,

when Mrs. Renfrew's attention was called away.

"It strengthens the disease," said the Rector's wife, much too

well-born not to be an amateur in medicine. "Everything depends on the

constitution: some people make fat, some blood, and some bile--that's

my view of the matter; and whatever they take is a sort of grist to the

mill."

"Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce--reduce the

disease, you know, if you are right, my dear. And I think what you say

is reasonable."

"Certainly it is reasonable. You have two sorts of potatoes, fed on

the same soil. One of them grows more and more watery--"

"Ah! like this poor Mrs. Renfrew--that is what I think. Dropsy! There

is no swelling yet--it is inward. I should say she ought to take

drying medicines, shouldn't you?--or a dry hot-air bath. Many things

might be tried, of a drying nature."

"Let her try a certain person's pamphlets," said Mrs. Cadwallader in an

undertone, seeing the gentlemen enter. "He does not want drying."

"Who, my dear?" said Lady Chettam, a charming woman, not so quick as to

nullify the pleasure of explanation.

"The bridegroom--Casaubon. He has certainly been drying up faster since

the engagement: the flame of passion, I suppose."

"I should think he is far from having a good constitution," said Lady

Chettam, with a still deeper undertone. "And then his studies--so very

dry, as you say."




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