esigned her, since with the perversity of a Desdemona she had not
affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable and according to
nature; he could not yet be quite passive under the idea of her
engagement to Mr. Casaubon. On the day when he first saw them together
in the light of his present knowledge, it seemed to him that he had not
taken the affair seriously enough. Brooke was really culpable; he
ought to have hindered it. Who could speak to him? Something might be
done perhaps even now, at least to defer the marriage. On his way home
he turned into the Rectory and asked for Mr. Cadwallader. Happily, the
Rector was at home, and his visitor was shown into the study, where all
the fishing tackle hung. But he himself was in a little room
adjoining, at work with his turning apparatus, and he called to the
baronet to join him there. The two were better friends than any other
landholder and clergyman in the county--a significant fact which was in
agreement with the amiable expression of their faces.

Mr. Cadwallader was a large man, with full lips and a sweet smile; very
plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid imperturbable ease
and good-humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the
sunshine, quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed
of itself. "Well, how are you?" he said, showing a hand not quite fit
to be grasped. "Sorry I missed you before. Is there anything
particular? You look vexed."

Sir James's brow had a little crease in it, a little depression of the
eyebrow, which he seemed purposely to exaggerate as he answered.

"It is only this conduct of Brooke's. I really think somebody should
speak to him."

"What? meaning to stand?" said Mr. Cadwallader, going on with the
arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning. "I hardly
think he means it. But where's the harm, if he likes it? Any one who
objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the
strongest fellow. They won't overturn the Constitution with our friend
Brooke's head for a battering ram."

"Oh, I don't mean that," said Sir James, who, after putting down his
hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and
examine the sole of his boot with much bitterness. "I mean this
marriage. I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casaubon."

"What is the matter with Casaubon? I see no harm in him--if the girl
likes him."

"She is too you