Still a mother has
anxieties, and some young men would take to a bad life in consequence.
Besides, if I was obliged to speak, I should say I was not fond of
strangers coming into a town."

"I don't know, Selina," said Mrs. Bulstrode, with a little emphasis in
her turn. "Mr. Bulstrode was a stranger here at one time. Abraham and
Moses were strangers in the land, and we are told to entertain
strangers. And especially," she added, after a slight pause, "when
they are unexceptionable."

"I was not speaking in a religious sense, Harriet. I spoke as a
mother."

"Selina, I am sure you have never heard me say anything against a niece
of mine marrying your son."

"Oh, it is pride in Miss Vincy--I am sure it is nothing else," said
Mrs. Plymdale, who had never before given all her confidence to
"Harriet" on this subject. "No young man in Middlemarch was good
enough for her: I have heard her mother say as much. That is not a
Christian spirit, I think. But now, from all I hear, she has found a
man as proud as herself."

"You don't mean that there is anything between Rosamond and Mr.
Lydgate?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, rather mortified at finding out her own
ignorance.

"Is it possible you don't know, Harriet?"

"Oh, I go about so little; and I am not fond of gossip; I really never
hear any. You see so many people that I don't see. Your circle is
rather different from ours."

"Well, but your own niece and Mr. Bulstrode's great favorite--and
yours too, I am sure, Harriet! I thought, at one time, you meant him
for Kate, when she is a little older."

"I don't believe there can be anything serious at present," said Mrs.
Bulstrode. "My brother would certainly have told me."

"Well, people have different ways, but I understand that nobody can see
Miss Vincy and Mr. Lydgate together without taking them to be engaged.
However, it is not my business. Shall I put up the pattern of mittens?"

After this Mrs. Bulstrode drove to her niece with a mind newly
weighted. She was herself handsomely dressed, but she noticed with a
little more regret than usual that Rosamond, who was just come in and
met her in walking-dress, was almost as expensively equipped. Mrs.
Bulstrode was a feminine smaller edition of her brother, and had none
of her husband's low-toned pallor. She had a good honest glance and
used no circumlocution.

"You are alone, I see, my dear," she said, as they entered the
drawing-room together, looking round gr