me is as pretty as pretty can be. It
seems nobody ever goes into the house without finding this young
gentleman lying on the rug or warbling at the piano. But the people in
manufacturing towns are always disreputable."

"You began by saying that one report was false, Mrs. Cadwallader, and I
believe this is false too," said Dorothea, with indignant energy; "at
least, I feel sure it is a misrepresentation. I will not hear any evil
spoken of Mr. Ladislaw; he has already suffered too much injustice."

Dorothea when thoroughly moved cared little what any one thought of her
feelings; and even if she had been able to reflect, she would have held
it petty to keep silence at injurious words about Will from fear of
being herself misunderstood. Her face was flushed and her lip trembled.

Sir James, glancing at her, repented of his stratagem; but Mrs.
Cadwallader, equal to all occasions, spread the palms of her hands
outward and said--"Heaven grant it, my dear!--I mean that all bad tales
about anybody may be false. But it is a pity that young Lydgate should
have married one of these Middlemarch girls. Considering he's a son of
somebody, he might have got a woman with good blood in her veins, and
not too young, who would have put up with his profession. There's
Clara Harfager, for instance, whose friends don't know what to do with
her; and she has a portion. Then we might have had her among us.
However!--it's no use being wise for other people. Where is Celia?
Pray let us go in."

"I am going on immediately to Tipton," said Dorothea, rather haughtily.
"Good-by."

Sir James could say nothing as he accompanied her to the carriage. He
was altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance which had
cost him some secret humiliation beforehand.

Dorothea drove along between the berried hedgerows and the shorn
corn-fields, not seeing or hearing anything around. The tears came and
rolled down her cheeks, but she did not know it. The world, it seemed,
was turning ugly and hateful, and there was no place for her
trustfulness. "It is not true--it is not true!" was the voice within
her that she listened to; but all the while a remembrance to which
there had always clung a vague uneasiness would thrust itself on her
attention--the remembrance of that day when she had found Will Ladislaw
with Mrs. Lydgate, and had heard his voice accompanied by the piano.

"He said he would never do anything that I disapproved--I wish I