ver been
fond of Mr. Casaubon, and if it had not been for the sense of
obligation, would have laughed at him as a Bat of erudition. But the
idea of this dried-up pedant, this elaborator of small explanations
about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a
vendor's back chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to
marry him, and then passing his honeymoon away from her, groping after
his mouldy futilities (Will was given to hyperbole)--this sudden
picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust: he was divided
between the impulse to laugh aloud and the equally unseasonable impulse
to burst into scornful invective.

For an instant he felt that the struggle, was causing a queer
contortion of his mobile features, but with a good effort he resolved
it into nothing more offensive than a merry smile.

Dorothea wondered; but the smile was irresistible, and shone back from
her face too. Will Ladislaw's smile was delightful, unless you were
angry with him beforehand: it was a gush of inward light illuminating
the transparent skin as well as the eyes, and playing about every curve
and line as if some Ariel were touching them with a new charm, and
banishing forever the traces of moodiness. The reflection of that
smile could not but have a little merriment in it too, even under dark
eyelashes still moist, as Dorothea said inquiringly, "Something amuses
you?"

"Yes," said Will, quick in finding resources. "I am thinking of the
sort of figure I cut the first time I saw you, when you annihilated my
poor sketch with your criticism."

"My criticism?" said Dorothea, wondering still more. "Surely not. I
always feel particularly ignorant about painting."

"I suspected you of knowing so much, that you knew how to say just what
was most cutting. You said--I dare say you don't remember it as I
do--that the relation of my sketch to nature was quite hidden from you.
At least, you implied that." Will could laugh now as well as smile.

"That was really my ignorance," said Dorothea, admiring

Will's good-humor. "I must have said so only because I never could see
any beauty in the pictures which my uncle told me all judges thought
very fine. And I have gone about with just the same ignorance in Rome.
There are comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At
first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescos, or
with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe--like a child presen