is
blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits
it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome
baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed
uncertainty,--how could he affect her as a lover? The really
delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of
father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.

These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all
the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some
middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces. But he himself
dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely to be available for
such a position, that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea's
objections, and was in this case brave enough to defy the world--that
is to say, Mrs. Cadwallader the Rector's wife, and the small group of
gentry with whom he visited in the northeast corner of Loamshire. So
Miss Brooke presided in her uncle's household, and did not at all
dislike her new authority, with the homage that belonged to it.

Sir James Chettam was going to dine at the Grange to-day with another
gentleman whom the girls had never seen, and about whom Dorothea felt
some venerating expectation. This was the Reverend Edward Casaubon,
noted in the county as a man of profound learning, understood for many
years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also
as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety, and having views
of his own which were to be more clearly ascertained on the publication
of his book. His very name carried an impressiveness hardly to be
measured without a precise chronology of scholarship.

Early in the day Dorothea had returned from the infant school which she
had set going in the village, and was taking her usual place in the
pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters, bent on
finishing a plan for some buildings (a kind of work which she delighted
in), when Celia, who had been watching her with a hesitating desire to
propose something, said--

"Dorothea, dear, if you don't mind--if you are not very busy--suppose
we looked at mamma's jewels to-day, and divided them? It is exactly
six months to-day since uncle gave them to you, and you have not looked
at them yet."

Celia's face had the shadow of a pouting expression in it, the full
presence of the pout being kept back by an habitual awe of Dorothea and
principle