new ones could be built on the old sites. Sir
James said "Exactly," and she bore the word remarkably well.

Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very
useful members of society under good feminine direction, if they were
fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to say
whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing
blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in
relation to her. But her life was just now full of hope and action:
she was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned books
from the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be a
little less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casaubon), all the while being
visited with conscientious questionings whether she were not exalting
these poor doings above measure and contemplating them with that
self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly.

CHAPTER IV.

1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
2d Gent. Ay, truly: but I think it is the world
That brings the iron.

"Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish," said Celia, as
they were driving home from an inspection of the new building-site.

"He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine,"
said Dorothea, inconsiderately.

"You mean that he appears silly."

"No, no," said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on
her sister's a moment, "but he does not talk equally well on all
subjects."

"I should think none but disagreeable people do," said Celia, in her
usual purring way. "They must be very dreadful to live with. Only
think! at breakfast, and always."

Dorothea laughed. "O Kitty, you are a wonderful creature!" She pinched
Celia's chin, being in the mood now to think her very winning and
lovely--fit hereafter to be an eternal cherub, and if it were not
doctrinally wrong to say so, hardly more in need of salvation than a
squirrel. "Of course people need not be always talking well. Only one
tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well."

"You mean that Sir James tries and fails."

"I was speaking generally. Why do you catechise me about Sir James?
It is not the object of his life to please me."

"Now, Dodo, can you really believe that?"

"Certainly. He thinks of me as a future sister--that is all." Dorothea
had never hinted this before, waiting, from a certain sh