Dorothea was in the best temper now. Sir James, as brother in-law,
building model cottages on his estate, and then, perhaps, others being
built at Lowick, and more and more elsewhere in imitation—it would be
as if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make the
life of poverty beautiful!

Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon with
Lovegood. He also took away a complacent sense that he was making great
progress in Miss Brooke’s good opinion. The Maltese puppy was not
offered to Celia; an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought of with
surprise; but she blamed herself for it. She had been engrossing Sir
James. After all, it was a relief that there was no puppy to tread
upon.

Celia was present while the plans were being examined, and observed Sir
James’s illusion. “He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she only
cares about her plans. Yet I am not certain that she would refuse him
if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all her
notions. And how very uncomfortable Sir James would be! I cannot bear
notions.”

It was Celia’s private luxury to indulge in this dislike. She dared not
confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would be
laying herself open to a demonstration that she was somehow or other at
war with all goodness. But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect
mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her
down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring,
not listening. Celia was not impulsive: what she had to say could wait,
and came from her always with the same quiet staccato evenness. When
people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces and
features merely. She never could understand how well-bred persons
consented to sing and open their mouths in the ridiculous manner
requisite for that vocal exercise.It was not many days before Mr. Casaubon paid a morning visit, on which he was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night. Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convinced that her first impressions had been just. He was all she had at first imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a specimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which might open on the treasures of past ages; and this trust in his mental wealth was all the deeper and more effective 

 Prev. P 22/720 next