gine! Really it was a mercy," said Celia; "and I think it
is very nice for Dodo to be a widow. She can be just as fond of our
baby as if it were her own, and she can have as many notions of her own
as she likes."

"It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir James.

"But what should we have been then? We must have been something else,"
said Celia, objecting to so laborious a flight of imagination. "I like
her better as she is."

Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making arrangements for her
final departure to Lowick, Celia raised her eyebrows with
disappointment, and in her quiet unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of
sarcasm.

"What will you do at Lowick, Dodo? You say yourself there is nothing
to be done there: everybody is so clean and well off, it makes you
quite melancholy. And here you have been so happy going all about
Tipton with Mr. Garth into the worst backyards. And now uncle is
abroad, you and Mr. Garth can have it all your own way; and I am sure
James does everything you tell him."

"I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows all the
better," said Dorothea.

"But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and that is quite the
best part of the day." She was almost pouting: it did seem to her very
hard in Dodo to go away from the baby when she might stay.

"Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose," said Dorothea;
"but I want to be alone now, and in my own home. I wish to know the
Farebrothers better, and to talk to Mr. Farebrother about what there is
to be done in Middlemarch."

Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all converted into
resolute submission. She had a great yearning to be at Lowick, and was
simply determined to go, not feeling bound to tell all her reasons.
But every one around her disapproved. Sir James was much pained, and
offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham for a few months
with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle: at that period a man
could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected.

The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to her daughter in
town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo should be written to, and
invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon: it was not
credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think of living alone in
the house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader and secretary to royal
personages, and in point of knowledge and sentiments e