almost sure to be on the side of
Rosamond's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through
watchful blue eyes, whereas Lydgate's lay blind and unconcerned as a
jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.

That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a
process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest; and he
wrote out his daily notes with as much precision as usual. The
reveries from which it was difficult for him to detach himself were
ideal constructions of something else than Rosamond's virtues, and the
primitive tissue was still his fair unknown. Moreover, he was
beginning to feel some zest for the growing though half-suppressed feud
between him and the other medical men, which was likely to become more
manifest, now that Bulstrode's method of managing the new hospital was
about to be declared; and there were various inspiriting signs that his
non-acceptance by some of Peacock's patients might be counterbalanced
by the impression he had produced in other quarters. Only a few days
later, when he had happened to overtake Rosamond on the Lowick road and
had got down from his horse to walk by her side until he had quite
protected her from a passing drove, he had been stopped by a servant on
horseback with a message calling him in to a house of some importance
where Peacock had never attended; and it was the second instance of
this kind. The servant was Sir James Chettam's, and the house was
Lowick Manor.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

1st Gent. All times are good to seek your wedded home
Bringing a mutual delight.

2d Gent. Why, true.
The calendar hath not an evil day
For souls made one by love, and even death
Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves
While they two clasped each other, and foresaw
No life apart.

Mr. and Mrs. Casaubon, returning from their wedding journey, arrived at
Lowick Manor in the middle of January. A light snow was falling as
they descended at the door, and in the morning, when Dorothea passed
from her dressing-room avenue the blue-green boudoir that we know of,
she saw the long avenue of limes lifting their trunks from a white
earth, and spreading white branches against the dun and motionless sky.
The distant flat shrank in uniform whiteness and low-hanging uniformity
of cloud. The very furnitu