if she gave up marrying?"

"What is the use of saying that?--however, I'm going to the stables.
I'll tell Briggs to bring the carriage round."

Celia thought it was of great use, if not to say that, at least to take
a journey to Lowick in order to influence Dorothea's mind. All through
their girlhood she had felt that she could act on her sister by a word
judiciously placed--by opening a little window for the daylight of her
own understanding to enter among the strange colored lamps by which
Dodo habitually saw. And Celia the matron naturally felt more able to
advise her childless sister. How could any one understand Dodo so well
as Celia did or love her so tenderly?

Dorothea, busy in her boudoir, felt a glow of pleasure at the sight of
her sister so soon after the revelation of her intended marriage. She
had prefigured to herself, even with exaggeration, the disgust of her
friends, and she had even feared that Celia might be kept aloof from
her.

"O Kitty, I am delighted to see you!" said Dorothea, putting her hands
on Celia's shoulders, and beaming on her. "I almost thought you would
not come to me."

"I have not brought Arthur, because I was in a hurry," said Celia, and
they sat down on two small chairs opposite each other, with their knees
touching.

"You know, Dodo, it is very bad," said Celia, in her placid guttural,
looking as prettily free from humors as possible. "You have
disappointed us all so. And I can't think that it ever _will_ be--you
never can go and live in that way. And then there are all your plans!
You never can have thought of that. James would have taken any trouble
for you, and you might have gone on all your life doing what you liked."

"On the contrary, dear," said Dorothea, "I never could do anything that
I liked. I have never carried out any plan yet."

"Because you always wanted things that wouldn't do. But other plans
would have come. And how can you marry Mr. Ladislaw, that we none of
us ever thought you _could_ marry? It shocks James so dreadfully. And
then it is all so different from what you have always been. You would
have Mr. Casaubon because he had such a great soul, and was so and
dismal and learned; and now, to think of marrying Mr. Ladislaw, who has
got no estate or anything. I suppose it is because you must be making
yourself uncomfortable in some way or other."

Dorothea laughed.

"Well, it is very serious, Dodo," said Celia, becoming more impressive