most exemplary and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our

never being rich. They say Fortune is a woman and capricious.
But sometimes she is a good woman and gives to those who merit,

which has been the case with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who have given a
living to my son."

Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a dignified satisfaction
in her neat little effort at oratory, but this was not what Dorothea

wanted to hear. Poor thing! she did not even know whether Will Ladislaw
was still at Middlemarch, and there was no one whom she dared to ask,

unless it were Lydgate. But just now she could not see Lydgate
without sending for him or going to seek him. Perhaps Will Ladislaw,

having heard of that strange ban against him left by Mr. Casaubon,
had felt it better that he and she should not meet again, and perhaps

she was wrong to wish for a meeting that others might find many good
reasons against. Still "I do wish it" came at the end of those

wise reflections as naturally as a sob after holding the breath.
And the meeting did happen, but in a formal way quite unexpected by her.

One morning, about eleven, Dorothea was seated in her boudoir with a
map of the land attached to the manor and other papers before her,

which were to help her in making an exact statement for herself
of her income and affairs. She had not yet applied herself

to her work, but was seated with her hands folded on her lap,
looking out along the avenue of limes to the distant fields.

Every leaf was at rest in the sunshine, the familiar scene
was changeless, and seemed to represent the prospect of her life,

full of motiveless ease--motiveless, if her own energy could not
seek out reasons for ardent action. The widow's cap of those times

made an oval frame for the face, and had a crown standing up;
the dress was an experiment in the utmost laying on of crape;

but this heavy solemnity of clothing made her face look all the younger,
with its recovered bloom, and the sweet, inquiring candor of her eyes.

Her reverie was broken by Tantripp, who came to say that Mr. Ladislaw
was below, and begged permission to see Madam if it were not too early.

"I will see him," said Dorothea, rising immediately. "Let him
be shown into the drawing-room."

The drawing-room was the most neutral room in the house to her--
the one least associated with the trials of her married life:

the damask matched the wood-work, which was all white and gold;
there were two tall mirrors and tables with nothing on them--

in brief, it was a room where you had no reason for sitting in one
place rather than in another. It was below the boudoir, and had

also a bow-window looking out on the avenue. But when Pratt showed
Will Ladislaw into it the window was open; and a winged visitor,

buzzing in and out now and then without minding the furniture,
made the room look less formal and uninhabited.

"Glad to see you here again, sir," said Pratt, lingering to adjust
a blind.

"I am only come to say good-by, Pratt," said Will, who wished even
the butler to know that he was too proud to hang about Mrs. Casaubon

now she was a rich widow.
"Very sorry to hear it, sir," said Pratt, retiring. Of course,

as a servant who was to be told nothing, he knew the fact of
which Ladislaw was still ignorant, and had drawn his inferences;

indeed, had not differed from his betrothed Tantripp when she said,
"Your master was as jealous as a fiend--and no reason.

Madam would look higher than Mr. Ladislaw, else I don't know her.
Mrs. Cadwallader's maid says there's a lord coming who is to marry

her when the mourning's over."
There were not many moments for Will to walk about with his hat

in his hand before Dorothea entered. The meeting was very different
from that first meeting in Rome when Will had been embarrassed

and Dorothea calm. This time he felt miserable but determined,
while she was in a state of agitation which could not be hidden.

Just outside the door she had felt that this longed-for meeting was
after all too difficult, and when she saw Will advancing towards her,

the deep blush which was rare in her came with painful suddenness.
Neither of them knew how it was, but neither of them spoke.

She gave her hand for a moment, and then they went to sit down
near the window, she on one settee and he on another opposite.

Will was peculiarly" target="_blank" title="ad.特有地；古怪地">peculiarlyuneasy: it seemed to him not like Dorothea
that the mere fact of her being a widow should cause such a change

in her manner of receiving him; and he knew of no other condition
which could have affected their previous relation to each other--

except that, as his imagination at once told him, her friends
might have been poisoning her mind with their suspicions

of him.
"I hope I have not presumed too much in calling," said Will;

"I could not bear to leave the neighborhood and begin a new life
without seeing you to say good-by."

"Presumed? Surely not. I should have thought it unkind if you
had not wished to see me," said Dorothea, her habit of speaking

with perfect genuineness asserting itself through all her uncertainty
and agitation. "Are you going away immediately?"

"Very soon, I think. I intend to go to town and eat my dinners
as a barrister, since, they say, that is the preparation for all

public business. There will be a great deal of political work
to be done by-and-by, and I mean to try and do some of it.

Other men have managed to win an honorable position for themselves
without family or money."

"And that will make it all the more honorable," said Dorothea,
ardently. "Besides, you have so many talents. I have heard from

my uncle how well you speak in public, so that every one is sorry
when you leave off, and how clearly you can explain things.

And you care that justice should be done to every one. I am so glad.
When we were in Rome, I thought you only cared for poetry and art,

and the things that adorn life for us who are well off.
But now I know you think about the rest of the world."

While she was speaking Dorothea had lost her personal embarrassment,
and had become like her former self. She looked at Will with a

direct glance, full of delighted confidence.
"You approve of my going away for years, then, and never coming

here again till I have made myself of some mark in the world?"
said Will, trying hard to reconcile the utmost pride with the utmost

effort to get an expression of strong feeling from Dorothea.
She was not aware how long it was before she answered. She had

turned her head and was looking out of the window on the rose-bushes,
which seemed to have in them the summers of all the years when Will

would be away. This was not judiciousbehavior. But Dorothea never
thought of studying her manners: she thought only of bowing to a sad

necessity which divided her from Will. Those first words of his
about his intentions had seemed to make everything clear to her:

he knew, she supposed, all about Mr. Casaubon's final conduct in
relation to him, and it had come to him with the same sort of shock

as to herself. He had never felt more than friendship for her--
had never had anything in his mind to justify what she felt to be

her husband's outrage on the feelings of both: and that friendship
he still felt. Something which may be called an inward silent

sob had gone on in Dorothea before she said with a pure voice,
just trembling in the last words as if only from its liquid flexibility--

"Yes, it must be right for you to do as you say. I shall be
very happy when I hear that you have made your value felt.

But you must have patience. It will perhaps be a long while."
Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself from falling

down at her feet, when the "long while" came forth with its
gentle tremor. He used to say that the horrible hue and surface

of her crape dress was most likely the sufficient controlling force.
He sat still, however, and only said--