profiles and gaits and turns of
phrase distinguishing those Middlemarch young men whom she had known as
boys. She had been at school with girls of higher position, whose
brothers, she felt sure, it would have been possible for her to be more
interested in, than in these inevitable Middlemarch companions. But
she would not have chosen to mention her wish to her father; and he,
for his part, was in no hurry on the subject. An alderman about to be
mayor must by-and-by enlarge his dinner-parties, but at present there
were plenty of guests at his well-spread table.

That table often remained covered with the relics of the family
breakfast long after Mr. Vincy had gone with his second son to the
warehouse, and when Miss Morgan was already far on in morning lessons
with the younger girls in the schoolroom. It awaited the family
laggard, who found any sort of inconvenience (to others) less
disagreeable than getting up when he was called. This was the case one
morning of the October in which we have lately seen Mr. Casaubon
visiting the Grange; and though the room was a little overheated with
the fire, which had sent the spaniel panting to a remote corner,
Rosamond, for some reason, continued to sit at her embroidery longer
than usual, now and then giving herself a little shake, and laying her
work on her knee to contemplate it with an air of hesitating weariness.
Her mamma, who had returned from an excursion to the kitchen, sat on
the other side of the small work-table with an air of more entire
placidity, until, the clock again giving notice that it was going to
strike, she looked up from the lace-mending which was occupying her
plump fingers and rang the bell.

"Knock at Mr. Fred's door again, Pritchard, and tell him it has struck
half-past ten."

This was said without any change in the radiant good-humor of Mrs.
Vincy's face, in which forty-five years had delved neither angles nor
parallels; and pushing back her pink capstrings, she let her work rest
on her lap, while she looked admiringly at her daughter.

"Mamma," said Rosamond, "when Fred comes down I wish you would not let
him have red herrings. I cannot bear the smell of them all over the
house at this hour of the morning."

"Oh, my dear, you are so hard on your brothers! It is the only fault I
have to find with you. You are the sweetest temper in the world, but
you are so tetchy with your brothers."

"Not tetchy, mamma: you never hear me speak in an unl