prompt:
Chapter: How will you know the pitch of that great bell
    Too large for you to stir?  Let but a flute
    Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal listen close
    Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill.
    Then shall the huge bell tremble--then the mass
    With myriad waves concurrent shall respond
    In low soft unison.

Lydgate that evening spoke to Miss Vincy of Mrs. Casaubon, and laid
some emphasis on the strong feeling she appeared to have for that
formal studious man thirty years older than herself.

"Of course she is devoted to her husband," said Rosamond, implying a
notion of necessary sequence which the scientific man regarded as the
prettiest possible for a woman; but she was thinking at the same time
that it was not so very melancholy to be mistress of Lowick Manor with
a husband likely to die soon.  "Do you think her very handsome?"

"She certainly is handsome, but I have not thought about it," said
Lydgate.

"I suppose it would be unprofessional," said Rosamond, dimpling.  "But
how your practice is spreading!  You were called in before to the
Chettams, I think; and now, the Casaubons."

"Yes," said Lydgate, in a tone of compulsory admission.  "But I don't
really like attending such people so well as the poor.  The cases are
more monotonous, and one has to go through more fuss and listen more
deferentially to nonsense."

"Not more than in Middlemarch," said Rosamond.  "And at least you go
through wide corridors and have the scent of rose-leaves everywhere."

"That is true, Mademoiselle de Montmorenci," said Lydgate, just bending
his head to the table and lifting with his fourth finger her delicate
handkerchief which lay at the mouth of her reticule, as if to enjoy its
scent, while he looked at her with a smile.

But this agreeable holiday freedom with which Lydgate hovered about the
flower of Middlemarch, could not continue indefinitely.  It was not
more possible to find social isolation in that town than elsewhere, and
two people persistently flirting could by no means escape from "the
various entanglements, weights, blows, clashings, motions, by which
things severally go on." Whatever Miss Vincy did must be remarked, and
she was perhaps the more conspicuous to admirers and critics because
just now Mrs. Vincy, after some struggle, had gone with Fred to stay a
little while at Stone Court, there being no other way of at once
gratifying old Featherstone and keeping watch against Mary Garth, who
appeared a less tolerable daughter-in-law in proportion as Fred's
illness disappeared.

Aunt Bulstrode, for example, came a little oftener into Lowick Gate to
see Rosamond, now she was alone.  For Mrs. Bulstrode had a true
sisterly feeling for her brother; always thinking that he might have
married better, but wishing well to the children.  Now Mrs. Bulstrode
had a long-standing intimacy with Mrs. Plymdale.  They had nearly the
same preferences in silks, patterns for underclothing, china-ware, and
clergymen; they confided their little troubles of health and household
management to each other, and various little points of superiority on
Mrs. Bulstrode's side, namely, more decided seriousness, more
admiration for mind, and a house outside the town, sometimes served to
give color to their conversation without dividing them--well-meaning
women both, knowing very little of their own motives.

Mrs. Bulstrode, paying a morning visit to Mrs. Plymdale, happened to
say that she could not stay longer, because she was going to see poor
Rosamond.

"Why do you say 'poor Rosamond'?" said Mrs. Plymdale, a round-eyed
sharp little woman, like a tamed falcon.

"She is so pretty, and has been brought up in such thoughtlessness.
The mother, you know, had always that levity about her, which makes me
anxious for the children."

"Well, Harriet, if I am to speak my mind," said Mrs. Plymdale, with
emphasis, "I must say, anybody would suppose you and Mr. Bulstrode
would be delighted with what has happened, for you have done everything
to put Mr. Lydgate forward."

"Selina, what do you mean?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, in genuine surprise.

"Not but what I am truly thankful for Ned's sake," said Mrs. Plymdale.
"He could certainly better afford to keep such a wife than some people
can; but I should wish him to look elsewhere.  Still a mother has
anxieties, and some young men would take to a bad life in consequence.
Besides, if I was obliged to speak, I should say I was not fond of
strangers coming into a town."

"I don't know, Selina," said Mrs. Bulstrode, with a little emphasis in
her turn.  "Mr. Bulstrode was a stranger here at one time.  Abraham and
Moses were strangers in the land, and we are told to entertain
strangers.  And especially," she added, after a slight pause, "when
they are unexceptionable."

"I was not speaking in a religious sense, Harriet.  I spoke as a
mother."

"Selina, I am sure you have never heard me say anything against a niece
of mine marrying your son."

"Oh, it is pride in Miss Vincy--I am sure it is nothing else," said
Mrs. Plymdale, who had never before given all her confidence to
"Harriet" on this subject.  "No young man in Middlemarch was good
enough for her: I have heard her mother say as much.  That is not a
Christian spirit, I think.  But now, from all I hear, she has found a
man as proud as herself."

"You don't mean that there is anything between Rosamond and Mr.
Lydgate?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, rather mortified at finding out her own
ignorance.

"Is it possible you don't know, Harriet?"

"Oh, I go about so little; and I am not fond of gossip; I really never
hear any.  You see so many people that I don't see.  Your circle is
rather different from ours."

"Well, but your own niece and Mr. Bulstrode's great favorite--and
yours too, I am sure, Harriet!  I thought, at one time, you meant him
for Kate, when she is a little older."

"I don't believe there can be anything serious at present," said Mrs.
Bulstrode.  "My brother would certainly have told me."

"Well, people have different ways, but I understand that nobody can see
Miss Vincy and Mr. Lydgate together without taking them to be engaged.
However, it is not my business.  Shall I put up the pattern of mittens?"

After this Mrs. Bulstrode drove to her niece with a mind newly
weighted.  She was herself handsomely dressed, but she noticed with a
little more regret than usual that Rosamond, who was just come in and
met her in walking-dress, was almost as expensively equipped.  Mrs.
Bulstrode was a feminine smaller edition of her brother, and had none
of her husband's low-toned pallor.  She had a good honest glance and
used no circumlocution.

"You are alone, I see, my dear," she said, as they entered the
drawing-room together, looking round gravely.  Rosamond felt sure that
her aunt had something particular to say, and they sat down near each
other.  Nevertheless, the quilling inside Rosamond's bonnet was so
charming that it was impossible not to desire the same kind of thing
for Kate, and Mrs. Bulstrode's eyes, which were rather fine, rolled
round that ample quilled circuit, while she spoke.

"I have just heard something about you that has surprised me very much,
Rosamond."

"What is that, aunt?"  Rosamond's eyes also were roaming over her
aunt's large embroidered collar.

"I can hardly believe it--that you should be engaged without my knowing
it--without your father's telling me."  Here Mrs. Bulstrode's eyes
finally rested on Rosamond's, who blushed deeply, and said--

"I am not engaged, aunt."

"How is it that every one says so, then--that it is the town's talk?"

"The town's talk is of very little consequence, I think," said
Rosamond, inwardly gratified.

"Oh, my dear, be more thoughtful; don't despise your neighbors so.
Remember you are turned twenty-two now, and you will have no fortune:
your father, I am sure, will not be able to spare you anything.  Mr.
Lydgate is very intellectual and clever; I know there is an attraction
in that.  I like talking to such men myself; and your uncle finds him
very useful.  But the profession is a poor one here.  To be sure, this
life is not everything; but it is seldom a medical man has true
religious views--there is too much pride of intellect.  And you are not
fit to marry a poor man.

"Mr. Lydgate is not a poor man, aunt.  He has very high connections."

"He told me himself he was poor."

"That is because he is used to people who have a high style of living."

"My dear Rosamond, _you_ must not think of living in high style."

Rosamond looked down and played with her reticule.  She was not a fiery
young lady and had no sharp answers, but she meant to live as she
pleased.

"Then it is really true?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, looking very earnestly
at her niece.  "You are thinking of Mr. Lydgate--there is some
understanding between you, though your father doesn't know.  Be open,
my dear Rosamond: Mr. Lydgate has really made you an offer?"

Poor Rosamond's feelings were very unpleasant.  She had been quite easy
as to Lydgate's feeling and intention, but now when her aunt put this
question she did not like being unable to say Yes.  Her pride was hurt,
but her habitual control of manner helped her.

"Pray excuse me, aunt.  I would rather not speak on the subject."

"You would not give your heart to a man without a decided prospect, I
trust, my dear.  And think of the two excellent offers I know of that
you have refused!--and one still within your reach, if you will not
throw it away.  I knew a very great beauty who married badly at last,
by doing so.  Mr. Ned Plymdale is a nice young man--some might think
good-looking; and an only son; and a large business of that kind is
better than a profession.  Not that marrying is everything. I would
have you seek first the kingdom of God.  But a girl should keep her
heart within her own power."

"I should never give it to Mr. Ned Plymdale, if it were.  I have
already refused him.  If I loved, I should love at once and without
change," said Rosamond, with a great sense of being a romantic heroine,
and playing the part prettily.

"I see how it is, my dear," said Mrs. Bulstrode, in a melancholy voice,
rising to go.  "You have allowed your affections to be engaged without
return."

"No, indeed, aunt," said Rosamond, with emphasis.

"Then you are quite confident that Mr. Lydgate has a serious attachment
to you?"

Rosamond's cheeks by this time were persistently burning, and she felt
much mortification.  She chose to be silent, and her aunt went away all
the more convinced.

Mr. Bulstrode in things worldly and indifferent was disposed to do what
his wife bade him, and she now, without telling her reasons, desired
him on the next opportunity to find out in conversation with Mr.
Lydgate whether he had any intention of marrying soon.  The result was
a decided negative.  Mr. Bulstrode, on being cross-questioned, showed
that Lydgate had spoken as no man would who had any attachment that
could issue in matrimony.  Mrs. Bulstrode now felt that she had a
serious duty before her, and she soon managed to arrange a tete-a-tete
with Lydgate, in which she passed from inquiries about Fred Vincy's
health, and expressions of her sincere anxiety for her brother's large
family, to general remarks on the dangers which lay before young people
with regard to their settlement in life.  Young men were often wild and
disappointing, making little return for the money spent on them, and a
girl was exposed to many circumstances which might interfere with her
prospects.

"Especially when she has great attractions, and her parents see much
company," said Mrs. Bulstrode "Gentlemen pay her attention, and engross
her all to themselves, for the mere pleasure of the moment, and that
drives off others.  I think it is a heavy responsibility, Mr. Lydgate,
to interfere with the prospects of any girl." Here Mrs. Bulstrode fixed
her eyes on him, with an unmistakable purpose of warning, if not of
rebuke.

"Clearly," said Lydgate, looking at her--perhaps even staring a little
in return.  "On the other hand, a man must be a great coxcomb to go
about with a notion that he must not pay attention to a young lady lest
she should fall in love with him, or lest others should think she must."

"Oh, Mr. Lydgate, you know well what your advantages are.  You know
that our young men here cannot cope with you.  Where you frequent a
house it may militate very much against a girl's making a desirable
settlement in life, and prevent her from accepting offers even if they
are made."

Lydgate was less flattered by his advantage over the Middlemarch
Orlandos than he was annoyed by the perception of Mrs. Bulstrode's
meaning.  She felt that she had spoken as impressively as it was
necessary to do, and that in using the superior word "militate" she had
thrown a noble drapery over a mass of particulars which were still
evident enough.

Lydgate was fuming a little, pushed his hair back with one hand, felt
curiously in his waistcoat-pocket with the other, and then stooped to
beckon the tiny black spaniel, which had the insight to decline his
hollow caresses.  It would not have been decent to go away, because he
had been dining with other guests, and had just taken tea.  But Mrs.
Bulstrode, having no doubt that she had been understood, turned the
conversation.

Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore
palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes.
The next day Mr. Farebrother, parting from Lydgate in the street,
supposed that they should meet at Vincy's in the evening.  Lydgate
answered curtly, no--he had work to do--he must give up going out in
the evening.

"What! you are going to get lashed to the mast, eh, and are stopping
your ears?" said the Vicar.  "Well, if you don't mean to be won by the
sirens, you are right to take precautions in time."

A few days before, Lydgate would have taken no notice of these words as
anything more than the Vicar's usual way of putting things.  They
seemed now to convey an innuendo which confirmed the impression that he
had been making a fool of himself and behaving so as to be
misunderstood: not, he believed, by Rosamond herself; she, he felt
sure, took everything as lightly as he intended it.  She had an
exquisite tact and insight in relation to all points of manners; but
the people she lived among were blunderers and busybodies.  However,
the mistake should go no farther.  He resolved--and kept his
resolution--that he would not go to Mr. Vincy's except on business.

Rosamond became very unhappy.  The uneasiness first stirred by her
aunt's questions grew and grew till at the end of ten days that she had
not seen Lydgate, it grew into terror at the blank that might possibly
come--into foreboding of that ready, fatal sponge which so cheaply
wipes out the hopes of mortals.  The world would have a new dreariness
for her, as a wilderness that a magician's spells had turned for a
little while into a garden.  She felt that she was beginning to know
the pang of disappointed love, and that no other man could be the
occasion of such delightful aerial building as she had been enjoying
for the last six months.  Poor Rosamond lost her appetite and felt as
forlorn as Ariadne--as a charming stage Ariadne left behind with all
her boxes full of costumes and no hope of a coach.

There are many wonderful mixtures in the world which are all alike
called love, and claim the privileges of a sublime rage which is an
apology for everything (in literature and the drama).  Happily Rosamond
did not think of committing any desperate act: she plaited her fair
hair as beautifully as usual, and kept herself proudly calm.  Her most
cheerful supposition was that her aunt Bulstrode had interfered in some
way to hinder Lydgate's visits: everything was better than a
spontaneous indifference in him.  Any one who imagines ten days too
short a time--not for falling into leanness, lightness, or other
measurable effects of passion, but--for the whole spiritual circuit of
alarmed conjecture and disappointment, is ignorant of what can go on in
the elegant leisure of a young lady's mind.

On the eleventh day, however, Lydgate when leaving Stone Court was
requested by Mrs. Vincy to let her husband know that there was a marked
change in Mr. Featherstone's health, and that she wished him to come to
Stone Court on that day.  Now Lydgate might have called at the
warehouse, or might have written a message on a leaf of his pocket-book
and left it at the door.  Yet these simple devices apparently did not
occur to him, from which we may conclude that he had no strong
objection to calling at the house at an hour when Mr. Vincy was not at
home, and leaving the message with Miss Vincy.  A man may, from various
motives, decline to give his company, but perhaps not even a sage would
be gratified that nobody missed him.  It would be a graceful, easy way
of piecing on the new habits to the old, to have a few playful words
with Rosamond about his resistance to dissipation, and his firm resolve
to take long fasts even from sweet sounds.  It must be confessed, also,
that momentary speculations as to all the possible grounds for Mrs.
Bulstrode's hints had managed to get woven like slight clinging hairs
into the more substantial web of his thoughts.

Miss Vincy was alone, and blushed so deeply when Lydgate came in that
he felt a corresponding embarrassment, and instead of any playfulness,
he began at once to speak of his reason for calling, and to beg her,
almost formally, to deliver the message to her father.  Rosamond, who
at the first moment felt as if her happiness were returning, was keenly
hurt by Lydgate's manner; her blush had departed, and she assented
coldly, without adding an unnecessary word, some trivial chain-work
which she had in her hands enabling her to avoid looking at Lydgate
higher than his chin.  In all failures, the beginning is certainly the
half of the whole.  After sitting two long moments while he moved his
whip and could say nothing, Lydgate rose to go, and Rosamond, made
nervous by her struggle between mortification and the wish not to
betray it, dropped her chain as if startled, and rose too,
mechanically.  Lydgate instantaneously stooped to pick up the chain.
When he rose he was very near to a lovely little face set on a fair
long neck which he had been used to see turning about under the most
perfect management of self-contented grace.  But as he raised his eyes
now he saw a certain helpless quivering which touched him quite newly,
and made him look at Rosamond with a questioning flash.  At this moment
she was as natural as she had ever been when she was five years old:
she felt that her tears had risen, and it was no use to try to do
anything else than let them stay like water on a blue flower or let
them fall over her cheeks, even as they would.

That moment of naturalness was the crystallizing feather-touch: it
shook flirtation into love.  Remember that the ambitious man who was
looking at those Forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted
and rash.  He did not know where the chain went; an idea had thrilled
through the recesses within him which had a miraculous effect in
raising the power of passionate love lying buried there in no sealed
sepulchre, but under the lightest, easily pierced mould.  His words
were quite abrupt and awkward; but the tone made them sound like an
ardent, appealing avowal.

"What is the matter? you are distressed.  Tell me, pray."

Rosamond had never been spoken to in such tones before.  I am not sure
that she knew what the words were: but she looked at Lydgate and the
tears fell over her cheeks.  There could have been no more complete
answer than that silence, and Lydgate, forgetting everything else,
completely mastered by the outrush of tenderness at the sudden belief
that this sweet young creature depended on him for her joy, actually
put his arms round her, folding her gently and protectingly--he was
used to being gentle with the weak and suffering--and kissed each of
the two large tears.  This was a strange way of arriving at an
understanding, but it was a short way.  Rosamond was not angry, but she
moved backward a little in timid happiness, and Lydgate could now sit
near her and speak less incompletely.  Rosamond had to make her little
confession, and he poured out words of gratitude and tenderness with
impulsive lavishment.  In half an hour he left the house an engaged
man, whose soul was not his own, but the woman's to whom he had bound
himself.

He came again in the evening to speak with Mr. Vincy, who, just
returned from Stone Court, was feeling sure that it would not be long
before he heard of Mr. Featherstone's demise.  The felicitous word
"demise," which had seasonably occurred to him, had raised his spirits
even above their usual evening pitch.  The right word is always a
power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.  Considered as
a demise, old Featherstone's death assumed a merely legal aspect, so
that Mr. Vincy could tap his snuff-box over it and be jovial, without
even an intermittent affectation of solemnity; and Mr. Vincy hated both
solemnity and affectation.  Who was ever awe struck about a testator,
or sang a hymn on the title to real property?  Mr. Vincy was inclined
to take a jovial view of all things that evening: he even observed to
Lydgate that Fred had got the family constitution after all, and would
soon be as fine a fellow as ever again; and when his approbation of
Rosamond's engagement was asked for, he gave it with astonishing
facility, passing at once to general remarks on the desirableness of
matrimony for young men and maidens, and apparently deducing from the
whole the appropriateness of a little more punch.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Lydgate tells Rosamond about Dorothea's odd devotion to her old husband. Meanwhile, though, gossip about Lydgate and Rosamond has been spreading around Middlemarch. Mrs. Plymdale is exasperated with Rosamond for the sake of her own rejected son. So Mrs. Plymdale tells her friend, Harriet Bulstrode that Rosamond and Lydgate are engaged, and pretends to be sorry about it for Rosamond's sake, since Lydgate hasn't got any money. This is the first Mrs. Bulstrode has heard about it, so she goes to her niece and questions her about it. Rosamond won't give her a straight answer, so Mrs. Bulstrode assumes that they're secretly engaged. She warns Rosamond against marrying someone who can't support her. Rosamond just responds with "yes, aunt," and "no, aunt" and blushes, so Mrs. Bulstrode gives up. The next time Lydgate is over at their house for dinner, though , she questions him. She's a little more roundabout than she was with Rosamond, but he gets the message. He decides to avoid going to the Vincys' house as often to quiet the gossip. But Rosamond gets depressed - she was sure that he was in love with her. The thought that it was all flirtation had never entered her pretty little head. Lydgate has been taking care of Featherstone. Since Mrs. Vincy had asked him to let them know if he took a turn for the worse, Lydgate decides to swing by the Vincys' house to fill them in on Featherstone's condition. He finds Rosamond by herself. He's distant with her, and that upsets her. Just as he's about to leave, she tears up, and he notices. He asks her what's wrong, and she begins to cry for real. What's a guy to do? He kisses her until she stops crying, and suddenly finds that he's engaged to a pretty woman whom he can't really afford to support. At least she's pretty, though, right?


prompt:
Chapter: "They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk."
                                --SHAKESPEARE: Tempest.

The triumphant confidence of the Mayor founded on Mr. Featherstone's
insistent demand that Fred and his mother should not leave him, was a
feeble emotion compared with all that was agitating the breasts of the
old man's blood-relations, who naturally manifested more their sense of
the family tie and were more visibly numerous now that he had become
bedridden.  Naturally: for when "poor Peter" had occupied his arm-chair
in the wainscoted parlor, no assiduous beetles for whom the cook
prepares boiling water could have been less welcome on a hearth which
they had reasons for preferring, than those persons whose Featherstone
blood was ill-nourished, not from penuriousness on their part, but from
poverty.  Brother Solomon and Sister Jane were rich, and the family
candor and total abstinence from false politeness with which they were
always received seemed to them no argument that their brother in the
solemn act of making his will would overlook the superior claims of
wealth.  Themselves at least he had never been unnatural enough to
banish from his house, and it seemed hardly eccentric that he should
have kept away Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and the rest, who had no
shadow of such claims.  They knew Peter's maxim, that money was a good
egg, and should be laid in a warm nest.

But Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and all the needy exiles, held a
different point of view.  Probabilities are as various as the faces to
be seen at will in fretwork or paper-hangings: every form is there,
from Jupiter to Judy, if you only look with creative inclination.  To
the poorer and least favored it seemed likely that since Peter had done
nothing for them in his life, he would remember them at the last.
Jonah argued that men liked to make a surprise of their wills, while
Martha said that nobody need be surprised if he left the best part of
his money to those who least expected it.  Also it was not to be
thought but that an own brother "lying there" with dropsy in his legs
must come to feel that blood was thicker than water, and if he didn't
alter his will, he might have money by him.  At any rate some
blood-relations should be on the premises and on the watch against
those who were hardly relations at all.  Such things had been known as
forged wills and disputed wills, which seemed to have the golden-hazy
advantage of somehow enabling non-legatees to live out of them.  Again,
those who were no blood-relations might be caught making away with
things--and poor Peter "lying there" helpless!  Somebody should be on
the watch.  But in this conclusion they were at one with Solomon and
Jane; also, some nephews, nieces, and cousins, arguing with still
greater subtilty as to what might be done by a man able to "will away"
his property and give himself large treats of oddity, felt in a
handsome sort of way that there was a family interest to be attended
to, and thought of Stone Court as a place which it would be nothing but
right for them to visit.  Sister Martha, otherwise Mrs. Cranch, living
with some wheeziness in the Chalky Flats, could not undertake the
journey; but her son, as being poor Peter's own nephew, could represent
her advantageously, and watch lest his uncle Jonah should make an
unfair use of the improbable things which seemed likely to happen.  In
fact there was a general sense running in the Featherstone blood that
everybody must watch everybody else, and that it would be well for
everybody else to reflect that the Almighty was watching him.

Thus Stone Court continually saw one or other blood-relation alighting
or departing, and Mary Garth had the unpleasant task of carrying their
messages to Mr. Featherstone, who would see none of them, and sent her
down with the still more unpleasant task of telling them so.  As
manager of the household she felt bound to ask them in good provincial
fashion to stay and eat; but she chose to consult Mrs. Vincy on the
point of extra down-stairs consumption now that Mr. Featherstone was
laid up.

"Oh, my dear, you must do things handsomely where there's last illness
and a property.  God knows, I don't grudge them every ham in the
house--only, save the best for the funeral.  Have some stuffed veal
always, and a fine cheese in cut.  You must expect to keep open house
in these last illnesses," said liberal Mrs. Vincy, once more of
cheerful note and bright plumage.

But some of the visitors alighted and did not depart after the handsome
treating to veal and ham.  Brother Jonah, for example (there are such
unpleasant people in most families; perhaps even in the highest
aristocracy there are Brobdingnag specimens, gigantically in debt and
bloated at greater expense)--Brother Jonah, I say, having come down in
the world, was mainly supported by a calling which he was modest enough
not to boast of, though it was much better than swindling either on
exchange or turf, but which did not require his presence at Brassing so
long as he had a good corner to sit in and a supply of food.  He chose
the kitchen-corner, partly because he liked it best, and partly because
he did not want to sit with Solomon, concerning whom he had a strong
brotherly opinion.  Seated in a famous arm-chair and in his best suit,
constantly within sight of good cheer, he had a comfortable
consciousness of being on the premises, mingled with fleeting
suggestions of Sunday and the bar at the Green Man; and he informed
Mary Garth that he should not go out of reach of his brother Peter
while that poor fellow was above ground.  The troublesome ones in a
family are usually either the wits or the idiots.  Jonah was the wit
among the Featherstones, and joked with the maid-servants when they
came about the hearth, but seemed to consider Miss Garth a suspicious
character, and followed her with cold eyes.

Mary would have borne this one pair of eyes with comparative ease, but
unfortunately there was young Cranch, who, having come all the way from
the Chalky Flats to represent his mother and watch his uncle Jonah,
also felt it his duty to stay and to sit chiefly in the kitchen to give
his uncle company.  Young Cranch was not exactly the balancing point
between the wit and the idiot,--verging slightly towards the latter
type, and squinting so as to leave everything in doubt about his
sentiments except that they were not of a forcible character.  When
Mary Garth entered the kitchen and Mr. Jonah Featherstone began to
follow her with his cold detective eyes, young Cranch turning his head
in the same direction seemed to insist on it that she should remark how
he was squinting, as if he did it with design, like the gypsies when
Borrow read the New Testament to them.  This was rather too much for
poor Mary; sometimes it made her bilious, sometimes it upset her
gravity.  One day that she had an opportunity she could not resist
describing the kitchen scene to Fred, who would not be hindered from
immediately going to see it, affecting simply to pass through.  But no
sooner did he face the four eyes than he had to rush through the
nearest door which happened to lead to the dairy, and there under the
high roof and among the pans he gave way to laughter which made a
hollow resonance perfectly audible in the kitchen.  He fled by another
doorway, but Mr. Jonah, who had not before seen Fred's white
complexion, long legs, and pinched delicacy of face, prepared many
sarcasms in which these points of appearance were wittily combined with
the lowest moral attributes.

"Why, Tom, _you_ don't wear such gentlemanly trousers--you haven't got
half such fine long legs," said Jonah to his nephew, winking at the
same time, to imply that there was something more in these statements
than their undeniableness.  Tom looked at his legs, but left it
uncertain whether he preferred his moral advantages to a more vicious
length of limb and reprehensible gentility of trouser.

In the large wainscoted parlor too there were constantly pairs of eyes
on the watch, and own relatives eager to be "sitters-up." Many came,
lunched, and departed, but Brother Solomon and the lady who had been
Jane Featherstone for twenty-five years before she was Mrs. Waule found
it good to be there every day for hours, without other calculable
occupation than that of observing the cunning Mary Garth (who was so
deep that she could be found out in nothing) and giving occasional dry
wrinkly indications of crying--as if capable of torrents in a wetter
season--at the thought that they were not allowed to go into Mr.
Featherstone's room.  For the old man's dislike of his own family
seemed to get stronger as he got less able to amuse himself by saying
biting things to them.  Too languid to sting, he had the more venom
refluent in his blood.

Not fully believing the message sent through Mary Garth, they had
presented themselves together within the door of the bedroom, both in
black--Mrs. Waule having a white handkerchief partially unfolded in her
hand--and both with faces in a sort of half-mourning purple; while Mrs.
Vincy with her pink cheeks and pink ribbons flying was actually
administering a cordial to their own brother, and the
light-complexioned Fred, his short hair curling as might be expected in
a gambler's, was lolling at his ease in a large chair.

Old Featherstone no sooner caught sight of these funereal figures
appearing in spite of his orders than rage came to strengthen him more
successfully than the cordial.  He was propped up on a bed-rest, and
always had his gold-headed stick lying by him.  He seized it now and
swept it backwards and forwards in as large an area as he could,
apparently to ban these ugly spectres, crying in a hoarse sort of
screech--

"Back, back, Mrs. Waule!  Back, Solomon!"

"Oh, Brother.  Peter," Mrs. Waule began--but Solomon put his hand
before her repressingly.  He was a large-cheeked man, nearly seventy,
with small furtive eyes, and was not only of much blander temper but
thought himself much deeper than his brother Peter; indeed not likely
to be deceived in any of his fellow-men, inasmuch as they could not
well be more greedy and deceitful than he suspected them of being.
Even the invisible powers, he thought, were likely to be soothed by a
bland parenthesis here and there--coming from a man of property, who
might have been as impious as others.

"Brother Peter," he said, in a wheedling yet gravely official tone,
"It's nothing but right I should speak to you about the Three Crofts
and the Manganese.  The Almighty knows what I've got on my mind--"

"Then he knows more than I want to know," said Peter, laying down his
stick with a show of truce which had a threat in it too, for he
reversed the stick so as to make the gold handle a club in case of
closer fighting, and looked hard at Solomon's bald head.

"There's things you might repent of, Brother, for want of speaking to
me," said Solomon, not advancing, however.  "I could sit up with you
to-night, and Jane with me, willingly, and you might take your own time
to speak, or let me speak."

"Yes, I shall take my own time--you needn't offer me yours," said Peter.

"But you can't take your own time to die in, Brother," began Mrs.
Waule, with her usual woolly tone.  "And when you lie speechless you
may be tired of having strangers about you, and you may think of me and
my children"--but here her voice broke under the touching thought which
she was attributing to her speechless brother; the mention of ourselves
being naturally affecting.

"No, I shan't," said old Featherstone, contradictiously.  "I shan't
think of any of you.  I've made my will, I tell you, I've made my
will."  Here he turned his head towards Mrs. Vincy, and swallowed some
more of his cordial.

"Some people would be ashamed to fill up a place belonging by rights to
others," said Mrs. Waule, turning her narrow eyes in the same direction.

"Oh, sister," said Solomon, with ironical softness, "you and me are not
fine, and handsome, and clever enough: we must be humble and let smart
people push themselves before us."

Fred's spirit could not bear this: rising and looking at Mr.
Featherstone, he said, "Shall my mother and I leave the room, sir, that
you may be alone with your friends?"

"Sit down, I tell you," said old Featherstone, snappishly.  "Stop where
you are.  Good-by, Solomon," he added, trying to wield his stick again,
but failing now that he had reversed the handle.  "Good-by, Mrs. Waule.
Don't you come again."

"I shall be down-stairs, Brother, whether or no," said Solomon.  "I
shall do my duty, and it remains to be seen what the Almighty will
allow."

"Yes, in property going out of families," said Mrs. Waule, in
continuation,--"and where there's steady young men to carry on.  But I
pity them who are not such, and I pity their mothers.  Good-by, Brother
Peter."

"Remember, I'm the eldest after you, Brother, and prospered from the
first, just as you did, and have got land already by the name of
Featherstone," said Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as one
which might be suggested in the watches of the night.  "But I bid you
good-by for the present."

Their exit was hastened by their seeing old Mr. Featherstone pull his
wig on each side and shut his eyes with his mouth-widening grimace, as
if he were determined to be deaf and blind.

None the less they came to Stone Court daily and sat below at the post
of duty, sometimes carrying on a slow dialogue in an undertone in which
the observation and response were so far apart, that any one hearing
them might have imagined himself listening to speaking automata, in
some doubt whether the ingenious mechanism would really work, or wind
itself up for a long time in order to stick and be silent.  Solomon and
Jane would have been sorry to be quick: what that led to might be seen
on the other side of the wall in the person of Brother Jonah.

But their watch in the wainscoted parlor was sometimes varied by the
presence of other guests from far or near.  Now that Peter Featherstone
was up-stairs, his property could be discussed with all that local
enlightenment to be found on the spot: some rural and Middlemarch
neighbors expressed much agreement with the family and sympathy with
their interest against the Vincys, and feminine visitors were even
moved to tears, in conversation with Mrs. Waule, when they recalled the
fact that they themselves had been disappointed in times past by
codicils and marriages for spite on the part of ungrateful elderly
gentlemen, who, it might have been supposed, had been spared for
something better.  Such conversation paused suddenly, like an organ
when the bellows are let drop, if Mary Garth came into the room; and
all eyes were turned on her as a possible legatee, or one who might get
access to iron chests.

But the younger men who were relatives or connections of the family,
were disposed to admire her in this problematic light, as a girl who
showed much conduct, and who among all the chances that were flying
might turn out to be at least a moderate prize.  Hence she had her
share of compliments and polite attentions.

Especially from Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, a distinguished bachelor and
auctioneer of those parts, much concerned in the sale of land and
cattle: a public character, indeed, whose name was seen on widely
distributed placards, and who might reasonably be sorry for those who
did not know of him.  He was second cousin to Peter Featherstone, and
had been treated by him with more amenity than any other relative,
being useful in matters of business; and in that programme of his
funeral which the old man had himself dictated, he had been named as a
Bearer.  There was no odious cupidity in Mr. Borthrop Trumbull--nothing
more than a sincere sense of his own merit, which, he was aware, in
case of rivalry might tell against competitors; so that if Peter
Featherstone, who so far as he, Trumbull, was concerned, had
behaved like as good a soul as ever breathed, should have done anything
handsome by him, all he could say was, that he had never fished and
fawned, but had advised him to the best of his experience, which now
extended over twenty years from the time of his apprenticeship at
fifteen, and was likely to yield a knowledge of no surreptitious kind.
His admiration was far from being confined to himself, but was
accustomed professionally as well as privately to delight in estimating
things at a high rate.  He was an amateur of superior phrases, and
never used poor language without immediately correcting himself--which
was fortunate, as he was rather loud, and given to predominate,
standing or walking about frequently, pulling down his waistcoat with
the air of a man who is very much of his own opinion, trimming himself
rapidly with his fore-finger, and marking each new series in these
movements by a busy play with his large seals.  There was occasionally
a little fierceness in his demeanor, but it was directed chiefly
against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the
world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his
patience tried.  He felt that the Featherstone family generally was of
limited understanding, but being a man of the world and a public
character, took everything as a matter of course, and even went to
converse with Mr. Jonah and young Cranch in the kitchen, not doubting
that he had impressed the latter greatly by his leading questions
concerning the Chalky Flats.  If anybody had observed that Mr. Borthrop
Trumbull, being an auctioneer, was bound to know the nature of
everything, he would have smiled and trimmed himself silently with the
sense that he came pretty near that.  On the whole, in an auctioneering
way, he was an honorable man, not ashamed of his business, and feeling
that "the celebrated Peel, now Sir Robert," if introduced to him, would
not fail to recognize his importance.

"I don't mind if I have a slice of that ham, and a glass of that ale,
Miss Garth, if you will allow me," he said, coming into the parlor at
half-past eleven, after having had the exceptional privilege of seeing
old Featherstone, and standing with his back to the fire between Mrs.
Waule and Solomon.

"It's not necessary for you to go out;--let me ring the bell."

"Thank you," said Mary, "I have an errand."

"Well, Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored," said Mrs. Waule.

"What! seeing the old man?" said the auctioneer, playing with his seals
dispassionately. "Ah, you see he has relied on me considerably." Here
he pressed his lips together, and frowned meditatively.

"Might anybody ask what their brother has been saying?" said Solomon,
in a soft tone of humility, in which he had a sense of luxurious
cunning, he being a rich man and not in need of it.

"Oh yes, anybody may ask," said Mr. Trumbull, with loud and
good-humored though cutting sarcasm.  "Anybody may interrogate.  Any
one may give their remarks an interrogative turn," he continued, his
sonorousness rising with his style.  "This is constantly done by good
speakers, even when they anticipate no answer.  It is what we call a
figure of speech--speech at a high figure, as one may say." The
eloquent auctioneer smiled at his own ingenuity.

"I shouldn't be sorry to hear he'd remembered you, Mr. Trumbull," said
Solomon.  "I never was against the deserving.  It's the undeserving I'm
against."

"Ah, there it is, you see, there it is," said Mr. Trumbull,
significantly.  "It can't be denied that undeserving people have been
legatees, and even residuary legatees.  It is so, with testamentary
dispositions."  Again he pursed up his lips and frowned a little.

"Do you mean to say for certain, Mr. Trumbull, that my brother has left
his land away from our family?" said Mrs. Waule, on whom, as an
unhopeful woman, those long words had a depressing effect.

"A man might as well turn his land into charity land at once as leave
it to some people," observed Solomon, his sister's question having
drawn no answer.

"What, Blue-Coat land?" said Mrs. Waule, again.  "Oh, Mr. Trumbull, you
never can mean to say that.  It would be flying in the face of the
Almighty that's prospered him."

While Mrs. Waule was speaking, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull walked away from
the fireplace towards the window, patrolling with his fore-finger round
the inside of his stock, then along his whiskers and the curves of his
hair.  He now walked to Miss Garth's work-table, opened a book which
lay there and read the title aloud with pompous emphasis as if he were
offering it for sale:

"'Anne of Geierstein' (pronounced Jeersteen) or the 'Maiden of the
Mist, by the author of Waverley.'"  Then turning the page, he began
sonorously--"The course of four centuries has well-nigh elapsed since
the series of events which are related in the following chapters took
place on the Continent."  He pronounced the last truly admirable word
with the accent on the last syllable, not as unaware of vulgar usage,
but feeling that this novel delivery enhanced the sonorous beauty which
his reading had given to the whole.

And now the servant came in with the tray, so that the moments for
answering Mrs. Waule's question had gone by safely, while she and
Solomon, watching Mr. Trumbull's movements, were thinking that high
learning interfered sadly with serious affairs.  Mr. Borthrop Trumbull
really knew nothing about old Featherstone's will; but he could hardly
have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had been arrested
for misprision of treason.

"I shall take a mere mouthful of ham and a glass of ale," he said,
reassuringly.  "As a man with public business, I take a snack when I
can.  I will back this ham," he added, after swallowing some morsels
with alarming haste, "against any ham in the three kingdoms.  In my
opinion it is better than the hams at Freshitt Hall--and I think I am
a tolerable judge."

"Some don't like so much sugar in their hams," said Mrs. Waule.  "But
my poor brother would always have sugar."

"If any person demands better, he is at liberty to do so; but, God
bless me, what an aroma!  I should be glad to buy in that quality, I
know.  There is some gratification to a gentleman"--here Mr.
Trumbull's voice conveyed an emotional remonstrance--"in having this
kind of ham set on his table."

He pushed aside his plate, poured out his glass of ale and drew his
chair a little forward, profiting by the occasion to look at the inner
side of his legs, which he stroked approvingly--Mr. Trumbull having
all those less frivolous airs and gestures which distinguish the
predominant races of the north.

"You have an interesting work there, I see, Miss Garth," he observed,
when Mary re-entered. "It is by the author of 'Waverley': that is Sir
Walter Scott.  I have bought one of his works myself--a very nice
thing, a very superior publication, entitled 'Ivanhoe.' You will not
get any writer to beat him in a hurry, I think--he will not, in my
opinion, be speedily surpassed.  I have just been reading a portion at
the commencement of 'Anne of Jeersteen.' It commences well."  (Things
never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull: they always commenced, both in
private life and on his handbills.) "You are a reader, I see.  Do you
subscribe to our Middlemarch library?"

"No," said Mary.  "Mr. Fred Vincy brought this book."

"I am a great bookman myself," returned Mr. Trumbull.  "I have no less
than two hundred volumes in calf, and I flatter myself they are well
selected.  Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck,
and others.  I shall be happy to lend you any work you like to mention,
Miss Garth."

"I am much obliged," said Mary, hastening away again, "but I have
little time for reading."

"I should say my brother has done something for _her_ in his will,"
said Mr. Solomon, in a very low undertone, when she had shut the door
behind her, pointing with his head towards the absent Mary.

"His first wife was a poor match for him, though," said Mrs. Waule.
"She brought him nothing: and this young woman is only her niece,--and
very proud.  And my brother has always paid her wage."

"A sensible girl though, in my opinion," said Mr. Trumbull, finishing
his ale and starting up with an emphatic adjustment of his waistcoat.
"I have observed her when she has been mixing medicine in drops.  She
minds what she is doing, sir.  That is a great point in a woman, and a
great point for our friend up-stairs, poor dear old soul.  A man whose
life is of any value should think of his wife as a nurse: that is what
I should do, if I married; and I believe I have lived single long
enough not to make a mistake in that line.  Some men must marry to
elevate themselves a little, but when I am in need of that, I hope some
one will tell me so--I hope some individual will apprise me of the
fact.  I wish you good morning, Mrs. Waule.  Good morning, Mr. Solomon.
I trust we shall meet under less melancholy auspices."

When Mr. Trumbull had departed with a fine bow, Solomon, leaning
forward, observed to his sister, "You may depend, Jane, my brother has
left that girl a lumping sum."

"Anybody would think so, from the way Mr. Trumbull talks," said Jane.
Then, after a pause, "He talks as if my daughters wasn't to be trusted
to give drops."

"Auctioneers talk wild," said Solomon.  "Not but what Trumbull has made
money."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Mr. Featherstone's health has taken a turn for the worse, and now all his relatives are hanging around the house, waiting for him to die so that they can see where he left his money and land. His brothers and sisters think that they and their children have a better right to the inheritance than Mr. Featherstone's dead wives' nieces and nephews . Poor Mary Garth is in charge of running Mr. Featherstone's household for him, so she has to put up with all these vulture-like relatives hanging around all the time. When Featherstone finds out that all these relatives are in his house, he flies into a rage, and tells them that he's already made his will. Fred is a welcome visitor, though, and that makes the other relatives even more furious and jealous. One person they didn't anticipate, though, is Mr. Trumbull - he's an auctioneer, and has worked with Mr. Featherstone on various business matters in the past. Trumbull has a private conversation with Mr. Featherstone, and Featherstone's brothers and sisters wonder what it was about. Trumbull doesn't tell them, though, and loiters in the kitchen for a snack to torment them by not telling them what he knows about Featherstone's will.


prompt:
Chapter: "Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;
     And let us all to meditation."
                              --2 Henry VI.

That night after twelve o'clock Mary Garth relieved the watch in Mr.
Featherstone's room, and sat there alone through the small hours.  She
often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure,
notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded her
attentions.  There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly
still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light.  The red
fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence
calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the
straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her
contempt.  Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself
well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early
had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged
for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and
annoyance at that fact.  And she had already come to take life very
much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution
not to act the mean or treacherous part.  Mary might have become
cynical if she had not had parents whom she honored, and a well of
affectionate gratitude within her, which was all the fuller because she
had learned to make no unreasonable claims.

She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day, her
lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy
added fresh drollery: people were so ridiculous with their illusions,
carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque
while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves exceptions
to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they
alone were rosy.  Yet there were some illusions under Mary's eyes which
were not quite comic to her.  She was secretly convinced, though she
had no other grounds than her close observation of old Featherstone's
nature, that in spite of his fondness for having the Vincys about him,
they were as likely to be disappointed as any of the relations whom he
kept at a distance.  She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy's
evident alarm lest she and Fred should be alone together, but it did
not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would
be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor
as ever.  She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she
did not enjoy his follies when he was absent.

Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by
passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its
own powers with interest.  Mary had plenty of merriment within.

Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man
on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an
aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of
vices.  She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr.
Featherstone: he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him.
To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left
to the saints of the earth; and Mary was not one of them.  She had
never returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that
was her utmost.  Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious
about his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.

To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay
remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of
keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.
About three o'clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, "Missy, come
here!"

Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under
the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he
had selected the key.  He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it
another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have
recovered all their sharpness and said, "How many of 'em are in the
house?"

"You mean of your own relations, sir," said Mary, well used to the old
man's way of speech.  He nodded slightly and she went on.

"Mr. Jonah Featherstone and young Cranch are sleeping here."

"Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest--they come every day, I'll
warrant--Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns?  They come peeping,
and counting and casting up?"

"Not all of them every day.  Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here every
day, and the others come often."

The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said,
relaxing his face, "The more fools they.  You hearken, missy.  It's
three o'clock in the morning, and I've got all my faculties as well as
ever I had in my life.  I know all my property, and where the money's
put out, and everything.  And I've made everything ready to change my
mind, and do as I like at the last.  Do you hear, missy?  I've got my
faculties."

"Well, sir?" said Mary, quietly.

He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning.  "I've made two
wills, and I'm going to burn one.  Now you do as I tell you.  This is
the key of my iron chest, in the closet there.  You push well at the
side of the brass plate at the top, till it goes like a bolt: then you
can put the key in the front lock and turn it.  See and do that; and
take out the topmost paper--Last Will and Testament--big printed."

"No, sir," said Mary, in a firm voice, "I cannot do that."

"Not do it?  I tell you, you must," said the old man, his voice
beginning to shake under the shock of this resistance.

"I cannot touch your iron chest or your will.  I must refuse to do
anything that might lay me open to suspicion."

"I tell you, I'm in my right mind.  Shan't I do as I like at the last?
I made two wills on purpose.  Take the key, I say."

"No, sir, I will not," said Mary, more resolutely still.  Her repulsion
was getting stronger.

"I tell you, there's no time to lose."

"I cannot help that, sir.  I will not let the close of your life soil
the beginning of mine.  I will not touch your iron chest or your will."
She moved to a little distance from the bedside.

The old man paused with a blank stare for a little while, holding the
one key erect on the ring; then with an agitated jerk he began to work
with his bony left hand at emptying the tin box before him.

"Missy," he began to say, hurriedly, "look here! take the money--the
notes and gold--look here--take it--you shall have it all--do as I
tell you."

He made an effort to stretch out the key towards her as far as
possible, and Mary again retreated.

"I will not touch your key or your money, sir.  Pray don't ask me to do
it again.  If you do, I must go and call your brother."

He let his hand fall, and for the first time in her life Mary saw old
Peter Featherstone begin to cry childishly.  She said, in as gentle a
tone as she could command, "Pray put up your money, sir;" and then went
away to her seat by the fire, hoping this would help to convince him
that it was useless to say more.  Presently he rallied and said
eagerly--

"Look here, then.  Call the young chap.  Call Fred Vincy."

Mary's heart began to beat more quickly.  Various ideas rushed through
her mind as to what the burning of a second will might imply.  She had
to make a difficult decision in a hurry.

"I will call him, if you will let me call Mr. Jonah and others with
him."

"Nobody else, I say.  The young chap.  I shall do as I like."

"Wait till broad daylight, sir, when every one is stirring.  Or let me
call Simmons now, to go and fetch the lawyer?  He can be here in less
than two hours."

"Lawyer?  What do I want with the lawyer?  Nobody shall know--I say,
nobody shall know.  I shall do as I like."

"Let me call some one else, sir," said Mary, persuasively.  She did not
like her position--alone with the old man, who seemed to show a strange
flaring of nervous energy which enabled him to speak again and again
without falling into his usual cough; yet she desired not to push
unnecessarily the contradiction which agitated him.  "Let me, pray,
call some one else."

"You let me alone, I say.  Look here, missy.  Take the money.  You'll
never have the chance again.  It's pretty nigh two hundred--there's
more in the box, and nobody knows how much there was.  Take it and do
as I tell you."

Mary, standing by the fire, saw its red light falling on the old man,
propped up on his pillows and bed-rest, with his bony hand holding out
the key, and the money lying on the quilt before him.  She never forgot
that vision of a man wanting to do as he liked at the last.  But the
way in which he had put the offer of the money urged her to speak with
harder resolution than ever.

"It is of no use, sir.  I will not do it.  Put up your money.  I will
not touch your money.  I will do anything else I can to comfort you;
but I will not touch your keys or your money."

"Anything else anything else!" said old Featherstone, with hoarse rage,
which, as if in a nightmare, tried to be loud, and yet was only just
audible.  "I want nothing else.  You come here--you come here."

Mary approached him cautiously, knowing him too well.  She saw him
dropping his keys and trying to grasp his stick, while he looked at her
like an aged hyena, the muscles of his face getting distorted with the
effort of his hand.  She paused at a safe distance.

"Let me give you some cordial," she said, quietly, "and try to compose
yourself.  You will perhaps go to sleep.  And to-morrow by daylight you
can do as you like."

He lifted the stick, in spite of her being beyond his reach, and threw
it with a hard effort which was but impotence.  It fell, slipping over
the foot of the bed.  Mary let it lie, and retreated to her chair by
the fire.  By-and-by she would go to him with the cordial.  Fatigue
would make him passive.  It was getting towards the chillest moment of
the morning, the fire had got low, and she could see through the chink
between the moreen window-curtains the light whitened by the blind.
Having put some wood on the fire and thrown a shawl over her, she sat
down, hoping that Mr. Featherstone might now fall asleep.  If she went
near him the irritation might be kept up.  He had said nothing after
throwing the stick, but she had seen him taking his keys again and
laying his right hand on the money.  He did not put it up, however, and
she thought that he was dropping off to sleep.

But Mary herself began to be more agitated by the remembrance of what
she had gone through, than she had been by the reality--questioning
those acts of hers which had come imperatively and excluded all
question in the critical moment.

Presently the dry wood sent out a flame which illuminated every
crevice, and Mary saw that the old man was lying quietly with his head
turned a little on one side.  She went towards him with inaudible
steps, and thought that his face looked strangely motionless; but the
next moment the movement of the flame communicating itself to all
objects made her uncertain.  The violent beating of her heart rendered
her perceptions so doubtful that even when she touched him and listened
for his breathing, she could not trust her conclusions.  She went to
the window and gently propped aside the curtain and blind, so that the
still light of the sky fell on the bed.

The next moment she ran to the bell and rang it energetically.  In a
very little while there was no longer any doubt that Peter Featherstone
was dead, with his right hand clasping the keys, and his left hand
lying on the heap of notes and gold.

BOOK IV.

THREE LOVE PROBLEMS.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Mary Garth is sitting up in Mr. Featherstone's room, in case he should want anything during the night. He wakes up and calls her over to his bedside. He asks her to get his will out of the safe, and gives her the keys. He wants her to burn the second will so that only the first will be valid. She refuses - without any witnesses in the room, messing with his will, even at his request, could get her in a lot of trouble. He gets frustrated, and even offers her a bribe, but she holds firm. And then he dies.


prompt:
Chapter: 1st Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws.
                  Carry no weight, no force.
    2d Gent.                                  But levity
                  Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight.
                  For power finds its place in lack of power;
                  Advance is cession, and the driven ship
                  May run aground because the helmsman's thought
                  Lacked force to balance opposites."

It was on a morning of May that Peter Featherstone was buried.  In the
prosaic neighborhood of Middlemarch, May was not always warm and sunny,
and on this particular morning a chill wind was blowing the blossoms
from the surrounding gardens on to the green mounds of Lowick
churchyard.  Swiftly moving clouds only now and then allowed a gleam to
light up any object, whether ugly or beautiful, that happened to stand
within its golden shower.  In the churchyard the objects were
remarkably various, for there was a little country crowd waiting to see
the funeral.  The news had spread that it was to be a "big burying;"
the old gentleman had left written directions about everything and
meant to have a funeral "beyond his betters."  This was true; for old
Featherstone had not been a Harpagon whose passions had all been
devoured by the ever-lean and ever-hungry passion of saving, and who
would drive a bargain with his undertaker beforehand.  He loved money,
but he also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes, and
perhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making others feel his
power more or less uncomfortably.  If any one will here contend that
there must have been traits of goodness in old Featherstone, I will not
presume to deny this; but I must observe that goodness is of a modest
nature, easily discouraged, and when much privacy, elbowed in early
life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that
it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old
gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments
based on his personal acquaintance.  In any case, he had been bent on
having a handsome funeral, and on having persons "bid" to it who would
rather have stayed at home.  He had even desired that female relatives
should follow him to the grave, and poor sister Martha had taken a
difficult journey for this purpose from the Chalky Flats.  She and Jane
would have been altogether cheered (in a tearful manner) by this sign
that a brother who disliked seeing them while he was living had been
prospectively fond of their presence when he should have become a
testator, if the sign had not been made equivocal by being extended to
Mrs. Vincy, whose expense in handsome crape seemed to imply the most
presumptuous hopes, aggravated by a bloom of complexion which told
pretty plainly that she was not a blood-relation, but of that generally
objectionable class called wife's kin.

We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the
brood of desire; and poor old Featherstone, who laughed much at the way
in which others cajoled themselves, did not escape the fellowship of
illusion.  In writing the programme for his burial he certainly did not
make clear to himself that his pleasure in the little drama of which it
formed a part was confined to anticipation.  In chuckling over the
vexations he could inflict by the rigid clutch of his dead hand, he
inevitably mingled his consciousness with that livid stagnant presence,
and so far as he was preoccupied with a future life, it was with one of
gratification inside his coffin.  Thus old Featherstone was
imaginative, after his fashion.

However, the three mourning-coaches were filled according to the
written orders of the deceased.  There were pall-bearers on horseback,
with the richest scarfs and hatbands, and even the under-bearers had
trappings of woe which were of a good well-priced quality.  The black
procession, when dismounted, looked the larger for the smallness of the
churchyard; the heavy human faces and the black draperies shivering in
the wind seemed to tell of a world strangely incongruous with the
lightly dropping blossoms and the gleams of sunshine on the daisies.
The clergyman who met the procession was Mr. Cadwallader--also
according to the request of Peter Featherstone, prompted as usual by
peculiar reasons.  Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called
understrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman.
Mr. Casaubon was out of the question, not merely because he declined
duty of this sort, but because Featherstone had an especial dislike to
him as the rector of his own parish, who had a lien on the land in the
shape of tithe, also as the deliverer of morning sermons, which the old
man, being in his pew and not at all sleepy, had been obliged to sit
through with an inward snarl.  He had an objection to a parson stuck up
above his head preaching to him.  But his relations with Mr.
Cadwallader had been of a different kind: the trout-stream which ran
through Mr. Casaubon's land took its course through Featherstone's
also, so that Mr. Cadwallader was a parson who had had to ask a favor
instead of preaching.  Moreover, he was one of the high gentry living
four miles away from Lowick, and was thus exalted to an equal sky with
the sheriff of the county and other dignities vaguely regarded as
necessary to the system of things.  There would be a satisfaction in
being buried by Mr. Cadwallader, whose very name offered a fine
opportunity for pronouncing wrongly if you liked.

This distinction conferred on the Rector of Tipton and Freshitt was the
reason why Mrs. Cadwallader made one of the group that watched old
Featherstone's funeral from an upper window of the manor.  She was not
fond of visiting that house, but she liked, as she said, to see
collections of strange animals such as there would be at this funeral;
and she had persuaded Sir James and the young Lady Chettam to drive the
Rector and herself to Lowick in order that the visit might be
altogether pleasant.

"I will go anywhere with you, Mrs. Cadwallader," Celia had said; "but I
don't like funerals."

"Oh, my dear, when you have a clergyman in your family you must
accommodate your tastes: I did that very early.  When I married
Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the
end very much.  That soon spread to the middle and the beginning,
because I couldn't have the end without them."

"No, to be sure not," said the Dowager Lady Chettam, with stately
emphasis.

The upper window from which the funeral could be well seen was in the
room occupied by Mr. Casaubon when he had been forbidden to work; but
he had resumed nearly his habitual style of life now in spite of
warnings and prescriptions, and after politely welcoming Mrs.
Cadwallader had slipped again into the library to chew a cud of erudite
mistake about Cush and Mizraim.

But for her visitors Dorothea too might have been shut up in the
library, and would not have witnessed this scene of old Featherstone's
funeral, which, aloof as it seemed to be from the tenor of her life,
always afterwards came back to her at the touch of certain sensitive
points in memory, just as the vision of St. Peter's at Rome was inwoven
with moods of despondency.  Scenes which make vital changes in our
neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a
particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for
us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity
which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.

The dream-like association of something alien and ill-understood with
the deepest secrets of her experience seemed to mirror that sense of
loneliness which was due to the very ardor of Dorothea's nature.  The
country gentry of old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted apart
on their stations up the mountain they looked down with imperfect
discrimination on the belts of thicker life below.  And Dorothea was
not at ease in the perspective and chilliness of that height.

"I shall not look any more," said Celia, after the train had entered
the church, placing herself a little behind her husband's elbow so that
she could slyly touch his coat with her cheek.  "I dare say Dodo likes
it: she is fond of melancholy things and ugly people."

"I am fond of knowing something about the people I live among," said
Dorothea, who had been watching everything with the interest of a monk
on his holiday tour.  "It seems to me we know nothing of our neighbors,
unless they are cottagers.  One is constantly wondering what sort of
lives other people lead, and how they take things.  I am quite obliged
to Mrs. Cadwallader for coming and calling me out of the library."

"Quite right to feel obliged to me," said Mrs. Cadwallader.  "Your rich
Lowick farmers are as curious as any buffaloes or bisons, and I dare
say you don't half see them at church.  They are quite different from
your uncle's tenants or Sir James's--monsters--farmers without
landlords--one can't tell how to class them."

"Most of these followers are not Lowick people," said Sir James; "I
suppose they are legatees from a distance, or from Middlemarch.
Lovegood tells me the old fellow has left a good deal of money as well
as land."

"Think of that now! when so many younger sons can't dine at their own
expense," said Mrs. Cadwallader.  "Ah," turning round at the sound of
the opening door, "here is Mr. Brooke.  I felt that we were incomplete
before, and here is the explanation.  You are come to see this odd
funeral, of course?"

"No, I came to look after Casaubon--to see how he goes on, you know.
And to bring a little news--a little news, my dear," said Mr. Brooke,
nodding at Dorothea as she came towards him.  "I looked into the
library, and I saw Casaubon over his books.  I told him it wouldn't do:
I said, 'This will never do, you know: think of your wife, Casaubon.'
And he promised me to come up.  I didn't tell him my news: I said, he
must come up."

"Ah, now they are coming out of church," Mrs. Cadwallader exclaimed.
"Dear me, what a wonderfully mixed set!  Mr. Lydgate as doctor, I
suppose.  But that is really a good looking woman, and the fair young
man must be her son.  Who are they, Sir James, do you know?"

"I see Vincy, the Mayor of Middlemarch; they are probably his wife and
son," said Sir James, looking interrogatively at Mr. Brooke, who nodded
and said--

"Yes, a very decent family--a very good fellow is Vincy; a credit to
the manufacturing interest.  You have seen him at my house, you know."

"Ah, yes: one of your secret committee," said Mrs. Cadwallader,
provokingly.

"A coursing fellow, though," said Sir James, with a fox-hunter's
disgust.

"And one of those who suck the life out of the wretched handloom
weavers in Tipton and Freshitt.  That is how his family look so fair
and sleek," said Mrs. Cadwallader.  "Those dark, purple-faced people
are an excellent foil.  Dear me, they are like a set of jugs!  Do look
at Humphrey: one might fancy him an ugly archangel towering above them
in his white surplice."

"It's a solemn thing, though, a funeral," said Mr. Brooke, "if you take
it in that light, you know."

"But I am not taking it in that light.  I can't wear my solemnity too
often, else it will go to rags.  It was time the old man died, and none
of these people are sorry."

"How piteous!" said Dorothea.  "This funeral seems to me the most
dismal thing I ever saw.  It is a blot on the morning I cannot bear to
think that any one should die and leave no love behind."

She was going to say more, but she saw her husband enter and seat
himself a little in the background.  The difference his presence made
to her was not always a happy one: she felt that he often inwardly
objected to her speech.

"Positively," exclaimed Mrs. Cadwallader, "there is a new face come out
from behind that broad man queerer than any of them: a little round
head with bulging eyes--a sort of frog-face--do look.  He must be of
another blood, I think."

"Let me see!" said Celia, with awakened curiosity, standing behind Mrs.
Cadwallader and leaning forward over her head.  "Oh, what an odd face!"
Then with a quick change to another sort of surprised expression, she
added, "Why, Dodo, you never told me that Mr. Ladislaw was come again!"

Dorothea felt a shock of alarm: every one noticed her sudden paleness
as she looked up immediately at her uncle, while Mr. Casaubon looked at
her.

"He came with me, you know; he is my guest--puts up with me at the
Grange," said Mr. Brooke, in his easiest tone, nodding at Dorothea, as
if the announcement were just what she might have expected.  "And we
have brought the picture at the top of the carriage.  I knew you would
be pleased with the surprise, Casaubon.  There you are to the very
life--as Aquinas, you know.  Quite the right sort of thing.  And you
will hear young Ladislaw talk about it.  He talks uncommonly
well--points out this, that, and the other--knows art and everything of
that kind--companionable, you know--is up with you in any track--what
I've been wanting a long while."

Mr. Casaubon bowed with cold politeness, mastering his irritation, but
only so far as to be silent.  He remembered Will's letter quite as well
as Dorothea did; he had noticed that it was not among the letters which
had been reserved for him on his recovery, and secretly concluding that
Dorothea had sent word to Will not to come to Lowick, he had shrunk
with proud sensitiveness from ever recurring to the subject.  He now
inferred that she had asked her uncle to invite Will to the Grange; and
she felt it impossible at that moment to enter into any explanation.

Mrs. Cadwallader's eyes, diverted from the churchyard, saw a good deal
of dumb show which was not so intelligible to her as she could have
desired, and could not repress the question, "Who is Mr. Ladislaw?"

"A young relative of Mr. Casaubon's," said Sir James, promptly.  His
good-nature often made him quick and clear-seeing in personal matters,
and he had divined from Dorothea's glance at her husband that there was
some alarm in her mind.

"A very nice young fellow--Casaubon has done everything for him,"
explained Mr. Brooke.  "He repays your expense in him, Casaubon," he
went on, nodding encouragingly.  "I hope he will stay with me a long
while and we shall make something of my documents.  I have plenty of
ideas and facts, you know, and I can see he is just the man to put them
into shape--remembers what the right quotations are, omne tulit
punctum, and that sort of thing--gives subjects a kind of turn.  I
invited him some time ago when you were ill, Casaubon; Dorothea said
you couldn't have anybody in the house, you know, and she asked me to
write."

Poor Dorothea felt that every word of her uncle's was about as pleasant
as a grain of sand in the eye to Mr. Casaubon.  It would be altogether
unfitting now to explain that she had not wished her uncle to invite
Will Ladislaw.  She could not in the least make clear to herself the
reasons for her husband's dislike to his presence--a dislike painfully
impressed on her by the scene in the library; but she felt the
unbecomingness of saying anything that might convey a notion of it to
others.  Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those
mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of
us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge. But he
wished to repress outward signs, and only Dorothea could discern the
changes in her husband's face before he observed with more of dignified
bending and sing-song than usual--

"You are exceedingly hospitable, my dear sir; and I owe you
acknowledgments for exercising your hospitality towards a relative of
mine."

The funeral was ended now, and the churchyard was being cleared.

"Now you can see him, Mrs. Cadwallader," said Celia.  "He is just like
a miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt that hangs in Dorothea's
boudoir--quite nice-looking."

"A very pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, dryly.  "What is your
nephew to be, Mr. Casaubon?"

"Pardon me, he is not my nephew.  He is my cousin."

"Well, you know," interposed Mr. Brooke, "he is trying his wings.  He
is just the sort of young fellow to rise.  I should be glad to give him
an opportunity.  He would make a good secretary, now, like Hobbes,
Milton, Swift--that sort of man."

"I understand," said Mrs. Cadwallader.  "One who can write speeches."

"I'll fetch him in now, eh, Casaubon?" said Mr. Brooke.  "He wouldn't
come in till I had announced him, you know.  And we'll go down and look
at the picture.  There you are to the life: a deep subtle sort of
thinker with his fore-finger on the page, while Saint Bonaventure or
somebody else, rather fat and florid, is looking up at the Trinity.
Everything is symbolical, you know--the higher style of art: I like
that up to a certain point, but not too far--it's rather straining to
keep up with, you know.  But you are at home in that, Casaubon.  And
your painter's flesh is good--solidity, transparency, everything of
that sort.  I went into that a great deal at one time.  However, I'll
go and fetch Ladislaw."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: On a morning in May, Mr. Featherstone's funeral procession goes by Lowick manor to the cemetery at the Lowick churchyard. Celia and Sir James , Lady Chettam , Mr. Brooke, Dorothea, and Mrs. Cadwallader all watch the procession from a window at Lowick. Mr. Casaubon has politely welcomed the group, and then slipped off to his library to work despite Lydgate's warnings. Dorothea's glad to have the company, though. Ordinarily she'd be shut up in the library with Mr. Casaubon. As the funeral passes, Sir James recognizes Mr. and Mrs. Vincy and their son, Fred, along with Mr. Lydgate and a pretty young woman . After they're done watching the funeral, Mr. Brooke shows up with the news that Ladislaw is staying with him, and will arrive shortly. Mr. Casaubon, who has joined them from the library, is less than pleased - he figures Dorothea asked her uncle to invite Will to stay with him at the Grange. Mr. Brooke is totally oblivious, though, and goes on and on about how great Will Ladislaw is, and how he'll help to put his papers in order. Will sent the portrait of Mr. Casaubon as St. Thomas Aquinas with Mr. Brooke.