ps perverting
everything she said and did. Then again she was conscious of another
change which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning
of heart towards Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mind
that he could, under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive the
effect of the sudden revelation that another had thought of him in that
light--that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such a
possibility,--and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfitting
conditions, and questions not soon to be solved.

It seemed a long while--she did not know how long--before she heard
Celia saying, "That will do, nurse; he will be quiet on my lap now.
You can go to lunch, and let Garratt stay in the next room." "What I
think, Dodo," Celia went on, observing nothing more than that Dorothea
was leaning back in her chair, and likely to be passive, "is that Mr.
Casaubon was spiteful. I never did like him, and James never did. I
think the corners of his mouth were dreadfully spiteful. And now he
has behaved in this way, I am sure religion does not require you to
make yourself uncomfortable about him. If he has been taken away, that
is a mercy, and you ought to be grateful. We should not grieve, should
we, baby?" said Celia confidentially to that unconscious centre and
poise of the world, who had the most remarkable fists all complete even
to the nails, and hair enough, really, when you took his cap off, to
make--you didn't know what:--in short, he was Bouddha in a Western
form.

At this crisis Lydgate was announced, and one of the first things he
said was, "I fear you are not so well as you were, Mrs. Casaubon; have
you been agitated? allow me to feel your pulse." Dorothea's hand was
of a marble coldness.

"She wants to go to Lowick, to look over papers," said Celia. "She
ought not, ought she?"

Lydgate did not speak for a few moments. Then he said, looking at
Dorothea. "I hardly know. In my opinion Mrs. Casaubon should do what
would give her the most repose of mind. That repose will not always
come from being forbidden to act."

"Thank you," said Dorothea, exerting herself, "I am sure that is wise.
There are so many things which I ought to attend to. Why should I sit
here idle?" Then, with an effort to recall subjects not connected with
her agitation, she added, abruptly, "You know every one in Middlemarch,
I think, Mr. Lydgate. I shall ask you to tell me a great deal. I have
serio