a great mistake to
suppose that Dorothea would have cared about any share in Mr.
Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment; for though opinion in the
neighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton had pronounced her clever, that
epithet would not have described her to circles in whose more precise
vocabulary cleverness implies mere aptitude for knowing and doing,
apart from character. All her eagerness for acquirement lay within
that full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses
were habitually swept along. She did not want to deck herself with
knowledge--to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her
action; and if she had written a book she must have done it as Saint
Theresa did, under the command of an authority that constrained her
conscience. But something she yearned for by which her life might be
filled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was
gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer
heightened yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there but
knowledge? Surely learned men kept the only oil; and who more learned
than Mr. Casaubon?

Thus in these brief weeks Dorothea's joyous grateful expectation was
unbroken, and however her lover might occasionally be conscious of
flatness, he could never refer it to any slackening of her affectionate
interest.

The season was mild enough to encourage the project of extending the
wedding journey as far as Rome, and Mr. Casaubon was anxious for this
because he wished to inspect some manuscripts in the Vatican.

"I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us," he said one
morning, some time after it had been ascertained that Celia objected to
go, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. "You will
have many lonely hours, Dorotheas, for I shall be constrained to make
the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel
more at liberty if you had a companion."

The words "I should feel more at liberty" grated on Dorothea. For the
first time in speaking to Mr. Casaubon she colored from annoyance.

"You must have misunderstood me very much," she said, "if you think I
should not enter into the value of your time--if you think that I
should not willingly give up whatever interfered with your using it to
the best purpose."

"That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon, not
in the least noticing that she was hurt; "but if you had a lady as your
c