which the new strictness of party division had marked off on the side
of Reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulstrode's; but here he could not
lie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulstrode felt that his mode of talking
about Catholic countries, as if there were any truce with Antichrist,
illustrated the usual tendency to unsoundness in intellectual men.

At Mr. Farebrother's, however, whom the irony of events had brought on
the same side with Bulstrode in the national movement, Will became a
favorite with the ladies; especially with little Miss Noble, whom it
was one of his oddities to escort when he met her in the street with
her little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of the town, and
insisting on going with her to pay some call where she distributed her
small filchings from her own share of sweet things.

But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug was
Lydgate's. The two men were not at all alike, but they agreed none the
worse. Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable, taking little notice of
megrims in healthy people; and Ladislaw did not usually throw away his
susceptibilities on those who took no notice of them. With Rosamond,
on the other hand, he pouted and was wayward--nay, often
uncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise; nevertheless he was
gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionship
in her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the grave
preoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence,
often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislike
of the medical profession.

Lydgate, inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of the
people in the efficacy of "the bill," while nobody cared about the low
state of pathology, sometimes assailed Will with troublesome questions.
One evening in March, Rosamond in her cherry-colored dress with
swansdown trimming about the throat sat at the tea-table; Lydgate,
lately come in tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways on an
easy-chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow looking a
little troubled as his eyes rambled over the columns of the "Pioneer,"
while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed, avoided looking
at him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself had not a moody
disposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug contemplating the
curtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low the notes of "When
first I saw thy face;" while the ho