Mr. Farebrother, and this, in relation to a man who is much honored,
is always dangerous to the firmness of a grateful woman.

To have a reason for going home the next day was a relief, for Mary
earnestly desired to be always clear that she loved Fred best.

When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many
of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it

seems to be a cheapening of our lives. And we can set a watch over
our affections and our constancy as we can over other treasures.

"Fred has lost all his other expectations; he must keep this,"
Mary said to herself, with a smile curling her lips. It was

impossible to help fleeting visions of another kind--new dignities
and an acknowledged value of which she had often felt the absence.

But these things with Fred outside them, Fred forsaken and looking
sad for the want of her, could never tempt her deliberate thought.

CHAPTER LVIII.
"For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:
In many's looks the false heart's history

Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange:
But Heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell:
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be

Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell."
--SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.

At the time when Mr. Vincy uttered that presentiment about Rosamond,
she herself had never had the idea that she should be driven to make

the sort of appeal which he foresaw. She had not yet had any
anxiety about ways and means, although her domestic life had been

expensive as well as eventful. Her baby had been born prematurely,
and all the embroidered robes and caps had to be laid by in darkness.

This misfortune was attributed entirely to her having persisted
in going out on horseback one day when her husband had desired her

not to do so; but it must not be supposed that she had shown temper
on the occasion, or rudely told him that she would do as she liked.

What led her particularly to desire horse-exercise was a visit from
Captain Lydgate, the baronet's third son, who, I am sorry to say,

was detested by our Tertius of that name as a vapid fop "parting
his hair from brow to nape in a despicable fashion" (not followed

by Tertius himself), and showing an ignorantsecurity that he knew
the proper thing to say on every topic. Lydgate inwardly cursed his

own folly that he had drawn down this visit by consenting to go to his
uncle's on the wedding-tour, and he made himself rather disagreeable

to Rosamond by saying so in private. For to Rosamond this visit
was a source of unprecedented but gracefully concealed exultation.

She was so intenselyconscious of having a cousin who was a baronet's
son staying in the house, that she imagined the knowledge of what

was implied by his presence to be diffused through all other minds;
and when she introduced Captain Lydgate to her guests, she had

a placid sense that his rank penetrated them as if it had been
an odor. The satisfaction was enough for the time to melt away

some disappointment in the conditions of marriage with a medical man
even of good birth: it seemed now that her marriage was visibly

as well as ideally floating her above the Middlemarch level, and the
future looked bright with letters and visits to and from Quallingham,

and vague advancement in consequence for Tertius. Especially as,
probably at the Captain's suggestion, his married sister, Mrs. Mengan,

had come with her maid, and stayed two nights on her way from town.
Hence it was clearly worth while for Rosamond to take pains with

her music and the careful selection of her lace.
As to Captain Lydgate himself, his low brow, his aquiline nose

bent on one side, and his rather heavy utterance, might have been
disadvantageous in any young gentleman who had not a military bearing

and mustache to give him what is doted on by some flower-like blond
heads as "style." He had, moreover, that sort of high-breeding

which consists in being free from the petty solicitudes of
middle-class gentility, and he was a great critic of feminine charms.

Rosamond delighted in his admiration now even more than she had
done at Quallingham, and he found it easy to spend several hours

of the day in flirting with her. The visit altogether was one
of the pleasantest larks he had ever had, not the less so perhaps

because he suspected that his queer cousin Tertius wished him away:
though Lydgate, who would rather (hyperbolically speaking) have died

than have failed in politehospitality, suppressed his dislike,
and only pretended generally not to hear what the gallant officer said,

consigning the task of answering him to Rosamond. For he was not
at all a jealous husband, and preferred leaving a feather-headed

young gentleman alone with his wife to bearing him company.
"I wish you would talk more to the Captain at dinner, Tertius,"

said Rosamond, one evening when the important guest was gone
to Loamford to see some brother officers stationed there.

"You really look so absent sometimes--you seem to be seeing
through his head into something behind it, instead of looking at him."

"My dear Rosy, you don't expect me to talk much to such a conceited
ass as that, I hope," said Lydgate, brusquely. "If he got his

head broken, I might look at it with interest, not before."
"I cannot conceive why you should speak of your cousin so contemptuously,"

said Rosamond, her fingers moving at her work while she spoke
with a mild gravity which had a touch of disdain in it.

"Ask Ladislaw if he doesn't think your Captain the greatest bore he
ever met with. Ladislaw has almost forsaken the house since he came."

Rosamond thought she knew perfectly well why Mr. Ladislaw disliked
the Captain: he was jealous, and she liked his being jealous.

"It is impossible to say what will suit eccentric persons,"
she answered, "but in my opinion Captain Lydgate is a thorough

gentleman, and I think you ought not, out of respect to Sir Godwin,
to treat him with neglect."

"No, dear; but we have had dinners for him. And he comes in and
goes out as he likes. He doesn't want me"

"Still, when he is in the room, you might show him more attention.
He may not be a phoenix of cleverness in your sense; his profession

is different; but it would be all the better for you to talk a little
on his subjects. _I_ think his conversation is quite agreeable.

And he is anything but an unprincipled man."
"The fact is, you would wish me to be a little more like him,

Rosy," said Lydgate, in a sort of resigned murmur, with a
smile which was not exactly tender, and certainly not merry.

Rosamond was silent and did not smile again; but the lovely
curves of her face looked good-tempered enough without smiling.

Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how far
he had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy

appeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence
her husband's mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid,

using her comb and looking-glass and singing her song for the
relaxation of his adored wisdom alone. He had begun to distinguish

between that imagined adoration and the attraction towards a man's
talent because it gives him prestige, and is like an order in his

button-hole or an Honorable before his name.
It might have been supposed that Rosamond had travelled too,

since she had found the pointless conversation of Mr. Ned Plymdale
perfectly wearisome; but to most mortals there is a stupidity

which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable--
else, indeed, what would become of social bonds? Captain Lydgate's

stupidity was delicately" target="_blank" title="ad.精美地；微妙地">delicately scented, carried itself with "style,"
talked with a good accent, and was closely related to Sir Godwin.

Rosamond found it quite agreeable and caught many of its phrases.
Therefore since Rosamond, as we know, was fond of horseback,

there were plenty of reasons why she should be tempted to resume
her riding when Captain Lydgate, who had ordered his man with

two horses to follow him and put up at the "Green Dragon,"
begged her to go out on the gray which he warranted to be gentle

and trained to carry a lady--indeed, he had bought it for his sister,
and was taking it to Quallingham. Rosamond went out the first time

without telling her husband, and came back before his return;