r get them."

"I have heard Mr. Casaubon say that he regrets your want of patience,"
said Dorothea, gently. She was rather shocked at this mode of taking
all life as a holiday.

"Yes, I know Mr. Casaubon's opinion. He and I differ."

The slight streak of contempt in this hasty reply offended Dorothea.
She was all the more susceptible about Mr. Casaubon because of her
morning's trouble.

"Certainly you differ," she said, rather proudly. "I did not think of
comparing you: such power of persevering devoted labor as Mr.
Casaubon's is not common."

Will saw that she was offended, but this only gave an additional
impulse to the new irritation of his latent dislike towards Mr.
Casaubon. It was too intolerable that Dorothea should be worshipping
this husband: such weakness in a woman is pleasant to no man but the
husband in question. Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out
of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no
murder.

"No, indeed," he answered, promptly. "And therefore it is a pity that
it should be thrown away, as so much English scholarship is, for want
of knowing what is being done by the rest of the world. If Mr.
Casaubon read German he would save himself a great deal of trouble."

"I do not understand you," said Dorothea, startled and anxious.

"I merely mean," said Will, in an offhand way, "that the Germans have
taken the lead in historical inquiries, and they laugh at results which
are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have
made good roads. When I was with Mr. Casaubon I saw that he deafened
himself in that direction: it was almost against his will that he read
a Latin treatise written by a German. I was very sorry."

Will only thought of giving a good pinch that would annihilate that
vaunted laboriousness, and was unable to imagine the mode in which
Dorothea would be wounded. Young Mr. Ladislaw was not at all deep
himself in German writers; but very little achievement is required in
order to pity another man's shortcomings.

Poor Dorothea felt a pang at the thought that the labor of her
husband's life might be void, which left her no energy to spare for the
question whether this young relative who was so much obliged to him
ought not to have repressed his observation. She did not even speak,
but sat looking at her hands, absorbed in the piteousness of that
thought.

Will, however, having given that annihilating pinch, was rath