lked about the house with delightful emotion. Everything
seemed hallowed to her: this was to be the home of her wifehood, and
she looked up with eyes full of confidence to Mr. Casaubon when he drew
her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she
would like an alteration. All appeals to her taste she met gratefully,
but saw nothing to alter. His efforts at exact courtesy and formal
tenderness had no defect for her. She filled up all blanks with
unmanifested perfections, interpreting him as she interpreted the works
of Providence, and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness
to the higher harmonies. And there are many blanks left in the weeks
of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance.

"Now, my dear Dorothea, I wish you to favor me by pointing out which
room you would like to have as your boudoir," said Mr. Casaubon,
showing that his views of the womanly nature were sufficiently large to
include that requirement.

"It is very kind of you to think of that," said Dorothea, "but I assure
you I would rather have all those matters decided for me. I shall be
much happier to take everything as it is--just as you have been used to
have it, or as you will yourself choose it to be. I have no motive for
wishing anything else."

"Oh, Dodo," said Celia, "will you not have the bow-windowed room
up-stairs?"

Mr. Casaubon led the way thither. The bow-window looked down the
avenue of limes; the furniture was all of a faded blue, and there were
miniatures of ladies and gentlemen with powdered hair hanging in a
group. A piece of tapestry over a door also showed a blue-green world
with a pale stag in it. The chairs and tables were thin-legged and
easy to upset. It was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a
tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her embroidery. A light
bookcase contained duodecimo volumes of polite literature in calf,
completing the furniture.

"Yes," said Mr. Brooke, "this would be a pretty room with some new
hangings, sofas, and that sort of thing. A little bare now."

"No, uncle," said Dorothea, eagerly. "Pray do not speak of altering
anything. There are so many other things in the world that want
altering--I like to take these things as they are. And you like them
as they are, don't you?" she added, looking at Mr. Casaubon. "Perhaps
this was your mother's room when she was young."

"It was," he said, with his slow bend of the head.

"T