ke a Papist,
and of sitting up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife
might awaken you some fine morning with a new scheme for the
application of her income which would interfere with political economy
and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice
before he risked himself in such fellowship. Women were expected to
have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic
life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their
neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know
and avoid them.

The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers,
was generally in favor of Celia, as being so amiable and
innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke's large eyes seemed, like her
religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! compared with her,
the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise; so much
subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of
blazonry or clock-face for it.

Yet those who approached Dorothea, though prejudiced against her by
this alarming hearsay, found that she had a charm unaccountably
reconcilable with it. Most men thought her bewitching when she was on
horseback. She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the
country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she
looked very little like a devotee. Riding was an indulgence which she
allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she
enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to
renouncing it.

She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it
was pretty to see how her imagination adorned her sister Celia with
attractions altogether superior to her own, and if any gentleman
appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive than that of
seeing Mr. Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia:
Sir James Chettam, for example, whom she constantly considered from
Celia's point of view, inwardly debating whether it would be good for
Celia to accept him. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself
would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. Dorothea, with all
her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas
about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the
judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that
wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when h