light things, Smollett--'Roderick Random,' 'Humphrey Clinker:' they
are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you
know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonly--there's a droll bit
about a postilion's breeches. We have no such humor now. I have gone
through all these things, but they might be rather new to you."

"As new as eating thistles," would have been an answer to represent Mr.
Casaubon's feelings. But he only bowed resignedly, with due respect to
his wife's uncle, and observed that doubtless the works he mentioned
had "served as a resource to a certain order of minds."

"You see," said the able magistrate to Lydgate, when they were outside
the door, "Casaubon has been a little narrow: it leaves him rather at a
loss when you forbid him his particular work, which I believe is
something very deep indeed--in the line of research, you know. I would
never give way to that; I was always versatile. But a clergyman is
tied a little tight. If they would make him a bishop, now!--he did a
very good pamphlet for Peel. He would have more movement then, more
show; he might get a little flesh. But I recommend you to talk to Mrs.
Casaubon. She is clever enough for anything, is my niece. Tell her,
her husband wants liveliness, diversion: put her on amusing tactics."

Without Mr. Brooke's advice, Lydgate had determined on speaking to
Dorothea. She had not been present while her uncle was throwing out
his pleasant suggestions as to the mode in which life at Lowick might
be enlivened, but she was usually by her husband's side, and the
unaffected signs of intense anxiety in her face and voice about
whatever touched his mind or health, made a drama which Lydgate was
inclined to watch. He said to himself that he was only doing right in
telling her the truth about her husband's probable future, but he
certainly thought also that it would be interesting to talk
confidentially with her. A medical man likes to make psychological
observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too
easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set
at nought. Lydgate had often been satirical on this gratuitous
prediction, and he meant now to be guarded.

He asked for Mrs. Casaubon, but being told that she was out walking, he
was going away, when Dorothea and Celia appeared, both glowing from
their struggle with the March wind. When Lydgate begged to speak with
her alone, Dorothea