"She is a good creature--that fine girl--but a little too earnest," he
thought. "It is troublesome to talk to such women. They are always
wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of
any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle
things after their own taste."
Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any more
than Mr. Chichely's. Considered, indeed, in relation to the latter,
whose mind was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated to
shock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine young
women to purplefaced bachelors. But Lydgate was less ripe, and might
possibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion as
to the most excellent things in woman.
Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemen
under her maiden name. Not long after that dinner-party she had become
Mrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome.