thers. I went a good deal into that, at
one time. However, my dear, I have always said that people should do
as they like in these things, up to a certain point. I couldn't, as
your guardian, have consented to a bad match. But Casaubon stands
well: his position is good. I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though,
and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me."

That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened. She
attributed Dorothea's abstracted manner, and the evidence of further
crying since they had got home, to the temper she had been in about Sir
James Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not to give further
offence: having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had no
disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects. It had been her nature
when a child never to quarrel with any one--only to observe with wonder
that they quarrelled with her, and looked like turkey-cocks; whereupon
she was ready to play at cat's cradle with them whenever they recovered
themselves. And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to find
something wrong in her sister's words, though Celia inwardly protested
that she always said just how things were, and nothing else: she never
did and never could put words together out of her own head. But the
best of Dodo was, that she did not keep angry for long together. Now,
though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening, yet when
Celia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a proceeding in which
she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low
stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with the
musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her
speech like a fine bit of recitative--

"Celia, dear, come and kiss me," holding her arms open as she spoke.

Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly
kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her
lips gravely on each cheek in turn.

"Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon," said
Celia, in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.

"No, dear, I am very, very happy," said Dorothea, fervently.

"So much the better," thought Celia. "But how strangely Dodo goes from
one extreme to the other."

The next day, at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr. Brooke,
said, "Jonas is come back, sir, and has brought this letter."

Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea,