ould make a charming young woman as happy as she deserved
to be.

"I hope you are thoroughly satisfied with our stay--I mean, with the
result so far as your studies are concerned," said Dorothea, trying to
keep her mind fixed on what most affected her husband.

"Yes," said Mr. Casaubon, with that peculiar pitch of voice which makes
the word half a negative. "I have been led farther than I had
foreseen, and various subjects for annotation have presented themselves
which, though I have no direct need of them, I could not pretermit.
The task, notwithstanding the assistance of my amanuensis, has been a
somewhat laborious one, but your society has happily prevented me from
that too continuous prosecution of thought beyond the hours of study
which has been the snare of my solitary life."

"I am very glad that my presence has made any difference to you," said
Dorothea, who had a vivid memory of evenings in which she had supposed
that Mr. Casaubon's mind had gone too deep during the day to be able to
get to the surface again. I fear there was a little temper in her
reply. "I hope when we get to Lowick, I shall be more useful to you,
and be able to enter a little more into what interests you."

"Doubtless, my dear," said Mr. Casaubon, with a slight bow. "The notes
I have here made will want sifting, and you can, if you please, extract
them under my direction."

"And all your notes," said Dorothea, whose heart had already burned
within her on this subject, so that now she could not help speaking
with her tongue. "All those rows of volumes--will you not now do what
you used to speak of?--will you not make up your mind what part of them
you will use, and begin to write the book which will make your vast
knowledge useful to the world? I will write to your dictation, or I
will copy and extract what you tell me: I can be of no other use."
Dorothea, in a most unaccountable, darkly feminine manner, ended with a
slight sob and eyes full of tears.

The excessive feeling manifested would alone have been highly
disturbing to Mr. Casaubon, but there were other reasons why Dorothea's
words were among the most cutting and irritating to him that she could
have been impelled to use. She was as blind to his inward troubles as
he to hers: she had not yet learned those hidden conflicts in her
husband which claim our pity. She had not yet listened patiently to
his heartbeats, but only felt that her own was beating violently. In
Mr. C