prompt:
Chapter: "Non, je ne comprends pas de plus charmant plaisir
     Que de voir d'heritiers une troupe affligee
     Le maintien interdit, et la mine allongee,
     Lire un long testament ou pales, etonnes
     On leur laisse un bonsoir avec un pied de nez.
     Pour voir au naturel leur tristesse profonde
     Je reviendrais, je crois, expres de l'autre monde."
                         --REGNARD: Le Legataire Universel.

When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied
species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to
think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were
eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.  (I fear the
part played by the vultures on that occasion would be too painful for
art to represent, those birds being disadvantageously naked about the
gullet, and apparently without rites and ceremonies.)

The same sort of temptation befell the Christian Carnivora who formed
Peter Featherstone's funeral procession; most of them having their
minds bent on a limited store which each would have liked to get the
most of.  The long-recognized blood-relations and connections by
marriage made already a goodly number, which, multiplied by
possibilities, presented a fine range for jealous conjecture and
pathetic hopefulness.  Jealousy of the Vincys had created a fellowship
in hostility among all persons of the Featherstone blood, so that in
the absence of any decided indication that one of themselves was to
have more than the rest, the dread lest that long-legged Fred Vincy
should have the land was necessarily dominant, though it left abundant
feeling and leisure for vaguer jealousies, such as were entertained
towards Mary Garth.  Solomon found time to reflect that Jonah was
undeserving, and Jonah to abuse Solomon as greedy; Jane, the elder
sister, held that Martha's children ought not to expect so much as the
young Waules; and Martha, more lax on the subject of primogeniture, was
sorry to think that Jane was so "having."  These nearest of kin were
naturally impressed with the unreasonableness of expectations in
cousins and second cousins, and used their arithmetic in reckoning the
large sums that small legacies might mount to, if there were too many
of them.  Two cousins were present to hear the will, and a second
cousin besides Mr. Trumbull.  This second cousin was a Middlemarch
mercer of polite manners and superfluous aspirates.  The two cousins
were elderly men from Brassing, one of them conscious of claims on the
score of inconvenient expense sustained by him in presents of oysters
and other eatables to his rich cousin Peter; the other entirely
saturnine, leaning his hands and chin on a stick, and conscious of
claims based on no narrow performance but on merit generally: both
blameless citizens of Brassing, who wished that Jonah Featherstone did
not live there.  The wit of a family is usually best received among
strangers.

"Why, Trumbull himself is pretty sure of five hundred--_that_ you may
depend,--I shouldn't wonder if my brother promised him," said Solomon,
musing aloud with his sisters, the evening before the funeral.

"Dear, dear!" said poor sister Martha, whose imagination of hundreds
had been habitually narrowed to the amount of her unpaid rent.

But in the morning all the ordinary currents of conjecture were
disturbed by the presence of a strange mourner who had plashed among
them as if from the moon.  This was the stranger described by Mrs.
Cadwallader as frog-faced: a man perhaps about two or three and thirty,
whose prominent eyes, thin-lipped, downward-curved mouth, and hair
sleekly brushed away from a forehead that sank suddenly above the ridge
of the eyebrows, certainly gave his face a batrachian unchangeableness
of expression.  Here, clearly, was a new legatee; else why was he
bidden as a mourner?  Here were new possibilities, raising a new
uncertainty, which almost checked remark in the mourning-coaches. We
are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed
very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we
have been making up our world entirely without it.  No one had seen
this questionable stranger before except Mary Garth, and she knew
nothing more of him than that he had twice been to Stone Court when Mr.
Featherstone was down-stairs, and had sat alone with him for several
hours.  She had found an opportunity of mentioning this to her father,
and perhaps Caleb's were the only eyes, except the lawyer's, which
examined the stranger with more of inquiry than of disgust or
suspicion.  Caleb Garth, having little expectation and less cupidity,
was interested in the verification of his own guesses, and the calmness
with which he half smilingly rubbed his chin and shot intelligent
glances much as if he were valuing a tree, made a fine contrast with
the alarm or scorn visible in other faces when the unknown mourner,
whose name was understood to be Rigg, entered the wainscoted parlor and
took his seat near the door to make part of the audience when the will
should be read.  Just then Mr. Solomon and Mr. Jonah were gone
up-stairs with the lawyer to search for the will; and Mrs. Waule,
seeing two vacant seats between herself and Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, had
the spirit to move next to that great authority, who was handling his
watch-seals and trimming his outlines with a determination not to show
anything so compromising to a man of ability as wonder or surprise.

"I suppose you know everything about what my poor brother's done, Mr.
Trumbull," said Mrs. Waule, in the lowest of her woolly tones, while
she turned her crape-shadowed bonnet towards Mr. Trumbull's ear.

"My good lady, whatever was told me was told in confidence," said the
auctioneer, putting his hand up to screen that secret.

"Them who've made sure of their good-luck may be disappointed yet,"
Mrs. Waule continued, finding some relief in this communication.

"Hopes are often delusive," said Mr. Trumbull, still in confidence.

"Ah!" said Mrs. Waule, looking across at the Vincys, and then moving
back to the side of her sister Martha.

"It's wonderful how close poor Peter was," she said, in the same
undertones.  "We none of us know what he might have had on his mind.  I
only hope and trust he wasn't a worse liver than we think of, Martha."

Poor Mrs. Cranch was bulky, and, breathing asthmatically, had the
additional motive for making her remarks unexceptionable and giving
them a general bearing, that even her whispers were loud and liable to
sudden bursts like those of a deranged barrel-organ.

"I never _was_ covetous, Jane," she replied; "but I have six children
and have buried three, and I didn't marry into money.  The eldest, that
sits there, is but nineteen--so I leave you to guess.  And stock always
short, and land most awkward.  But if ever I've begged and prayed; it's
been to God above; though where there's one brother a bachelor and the
other childless after twice marrying--anybody might think!"

Meanwhile, Mr. Vincy had glanced at the passive face of Mr. Rigg, and
had taken out his snuff-box and tapped it, but had put it again
unopened as an indulgence which, however clarifying to the judgment,
was unsuited to the occasion.  "I shouldn't wonder if Featherstone had
better feelings than any of us gave him credit for," he observed, in
the ear of his wife.  "This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it
looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if they
are humble, not to be ashamed of them.  I should be all the better
pleased if he'd left lots of small legacies.  They may be uncommonly
useful to fellows in a small way."

"Everything is as handsome as could be, crape and silk and everything,"
said Mrs. Vincy, contentedly.

But I am sorry to say that Fred was under some difficulty in repressing
a laugh, which would have been more unsuitable than his father's
snuff-box. Fred had overheard Mr. Jonah suggesting something about a
"love-child," and with this thought in his mind, the stranger's face,
which happened to be opposite him, affected him too ludicrously.  Mary
Garth, discerning his distress in the twitchings of his mouth, and his
recourse to a cough, came cleverly to his rescue by asking him to
change seats with her, so that he got into a shadowy corner.  Fred was
feeling as good-naturedly as possible towards everybody, including
Rigg; and having some relenting towards all these people who were less
lucky than he was aware of being himself, he would not for the world
have behaved amiss; still, it was particularly easy to laugh.

But the entrance of the lawyer and the two brothers drew every one's
attention.  The lawyer was Mr. Standish, and he had come to Stone Court
this morning believing that he knew thoroughly well who would be
pleased and who disappointed before the day was over.  The will he
expected to read was the last of three which he had drawn up for Mr.
Featherstone.  Mr. Standish was not a man who varied his manners: he
behaved with the same deep-voiced, off-hand civility to everybody, as
if he saw no difference in them, and talked chiefly of the hay-crop,
which would be "very fine, by God!" of the last bulletins concerning
the King, and of the Duke of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of
him, and just the man to rule over an island like Britain.

Old Featherstone had often reflected as he sat looking at the fire that
Standish would be surprised some day: it is true that if he had done as
he liked at the last, and burnt the will drawn up by another lawyer, he
would not have secured that minor end; still he had had his pleasure in
ruminating on it.  And certainly Mr. Standish was surprised, but not at
all sorry; on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the zest of a little
curiosity in his own mind, which the discovery of a second will added
to the prospective amazement on the part of the Featherstone family.

As to the sentiments of Solomon and Jonah, they were held in utter
suspense: it seemed to them that the old will would have a certain
validity, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Peter's
former and latter intentions as to create endless "lawing" before
anybody came by their own--an inconvenience which would have at least
the advantage of going all round.  Hence the brothers showed a
thoroughly neutral gravity as they re-entered with Mr. Standish; but
Solomon took out his white handkerchief again with a sense that in any
case there would be affecting passages, and crying at funerals, however
dry, was customarily served up in lawn.

Perhaps the person who felt the most throbbing excitement at this
moment was Mary Garth, in the consciousness that it was she who had
virtually determined the production of this second will, which might
have momentous effects on the lot of some persons present.  No soul
except herself knew what had passed on that final night.

"The will I hold in my hand," said Mr. Standish, who, seated at the
table in the middle of the room, took his time about everything,
including the coughs with which he showed a disposition to clear his
voice, "was drawn up by myself and executed by our deceased friend on
the 9th of August, 1825.  But I find that there is a subsequent
instrument hitherto unknown to me, bearing date the 20th of July, 1826,
hardly a year later than the previous one.  And there is farther, I
see"--Mr. Standish was cautiously travelling over the document with his
spectacles--"a codicil to this latter will, bearing date March 1, 1828."

"Dear, dear!" said sister Martha, not meaning to be audible, but driven
to some articulation under this pressure of dates.

"I shall begin by reading the earlier will," continued Mr. Standish,
"since such, as appears by his not having destroyed the document, was
the intention of deceased."

The preamble was felt to be rather long, and several besides Solomon
shook their heads pathetically, looking on the ground: all eyes avoided
meeting other eyes, and were chiefly fixed either on the spots in the
table-cloth or on Mr. Standish's bald head; excepting Mary Garth's.
When all the rest were trying to look nowhere in particular, it was
safe for her to look at them.  And at the sound of the first "give and
bequeath" she could see all complexions changing subtly, as if some
faint vibration were passing through them, save that of Mr. Rigg.  He
sat in unaltered calm, and, in fact, the company, preoccupied with more
important problems, and with the complication of listening to bequests
which might or might not be revoked, had ceased to think of him.  Fred
blushed, and Mr. Vincy found it impossible to do without his snuff-box
in his hand, though he kept it closed.

The small bequests came first, and even the recollection that there was
another will and that poor Peter might have thought better of it, could
not quell the rising disgust and indignation.  One likes to be done
well by in every tense, past, present, and future.  And here was Peter
capable five years ago of leaving only two hundred apiece to his own
brothers and sisters, and only a hundred apiece to his own nephews and
nieces: the Garths were not mentioned, but Mrs. Vincy and Rosamond were
each to have a hundred.  Mr. Trumbull was to have the gold-headed cane
and fifty pounds; the other second cousins and the cousins present were
each to have the like handsome sum, which, as the saturnine cousin
observed, was a sort of legacy that left a man nowhere; and there was
much more of such offensive dribbling in favor of persons not
present--problematical, and, it was to be feared, low connections.
Altogether, reckoning hastily, here were about three thousand disposed of.
Where then had Peter meant the rest of the money to go--and where the
land? and what was revoked and what not revoked--and was the revocation
for better or for worse?  All emotion must be conditional, and might turn
out to be the wrong thing.  The men were strong enough to bear up and
keep quiet under this confused suspense; some letting their lower lip
fall, others pursing it up, according to the habit of their muscles.
But Jane and Martha sank under the rush of questions, and began to cry;
poor Mrs. Cranch being half moved with the consolation of getting any
hundreds at all without working for them, and half aware that her share
was scanty; whereas Mrs. Waule's mind was entirely flooded with the
sense of being an own sister and getting little, while somebody else
was to have much.  The general expectation now was that the "much"
would fall to Fred Vincy, but the Vincys themselves were surprised when
ten thousand pounds in specified investments were declared to be
bequeathed to him:--was the land coming too?  Fred bit his lips: it was
difficult to help smiling, and Mrs. Vincy felt herself the happiest of
women--possible revocation shrinking out of sight in this dazzling
vision.

There was still a residue of personal property as well as the land, but
the whole was left to one person, and that person was--O
possibilities!  O expectations founded on the favor of "close" old
gentlemen!  O endless vocatives that would still leave expression
slipping helpless from the measurement of mortal folly!--that
residuary legatee was Joshua Rigg, who was also sole executor, and who
was to take thenceforth the name of Featherstone.

There was a rustling which seemed like a shudder running round the
room.  Every one stared afresh at Mr. Rigg, who apparently experienced
no surprise.

"A most singular testamentary disposition!" exclaimed Mr. Trumbull,
preferring for once that he should be considered ignorant in the past.
"But there is a second will--there is a further document.  We have not
yet heard the final wishes of the deceased."

Mary Garth was feeling that what they had yet to hear were not the
final wishes.  The second will revoked everything except the legacies
to the low persons before mentioned (some alterations in these being
the occasion of the codicil), and the bequest of all the land lying in
Lowick parish with all the stock and household furniture, to Joshua
Rigg.  The residue of the property was to be devoted to the erection
and endowment of almshouses for old men, to be called Featherstone's
Alms-Houses, and to be built on a piece of land near Middlemarch
already bought for the purpose by the testator, he wishing--so the
document declared--to please God Almighty.  Nobody present had a
farthing; but Mr. Trumbull had the gold-headed cane.  It took some time
for the company to recover the power of expression.  Mary dared not
look at Fred.

Mr. Vincy was the first to speak--after using his snuff-box
energetically--and he spoke with loud indignation.  "The most
unaccountable will I ever heard!  I should say he was not in his right
mind when he made it.  I should say this last will was void," added Mr.
Vincy, feeling that this expression put the thing in the true light.
"Eh Standish?"

"Our deceased friend always knew what he was about, I think," said Mr.
Standish.  "Everything is quite regular.  Here is a letter from
Clemmens of Brassing tied with the will.  He drew it up.  A very
respectable solicitor."

"I never noticed any alienation of mind--any aberration of intellect in
the late Mr. Featherstone," said Borthrop Trumbull, "but I call this
will eccentric.  I was always willingly of service to the old soul; and
he intimated pretty plainly a sense of obligation which would show
itself in his will.  The gold-headed cane is farcical considered as an
acknowledgment to me; but happily I am above mercenary considerations."

"There's nothing very surprising in the matter that I can see," said
Caleb Garth.  "Anybody might have had more reason for wondering if the
will had been what you might expect from an open-minded straightforward
man.  For my part, I wish there was no such thing as a will."

"That's a strange sentiment to come from a Christian man, by God!" said
the lawyer.  "I should like to know how you will back that up, Garth!"

"Oh," said Caleb, leaning forward, adjusting his finger-tips with
nicety and looking meditatively on the ground.  It always seemed to him
that words were the hardest part of "business."

But here Mr. Jonah Featherstone made himself heard.  "Well, he always
was a fine hypocrite, was my brother Peter.  But this will cuts out
everything.  If I'd known, a wagon and six horses shouldn't have drawn
me from Brassing.  I'll put a white hat and drab coat on to-morrow."

"Dear, dear," wept Mrs. Cranch, "and we've been at the expense of
travelling, and that poor lad sitting idle here so long!  It's the
first time I ever heard my brother Peter was so wishful to please God
Almighty; but if I was to be struck helpless I must say it's hard--I
can think no other."

"It'll do him no good where he's gone, that's my belief," said Solomon,
with a bitterness which was remarkably genuine, though his tone could
not help being sly.  "Peter was a bad liver, and almshouses won't cover
it, when he's had the impudence to show it at the last."

"And all the while had got his own lawful family--brothers and sisters
and nephews and nieces--and has sat in church with 'em whenever he
thought well to come," said Mrs. Waule.  "And might have left his
property so respectable, to them that's never been used to extravagance
or unsteadiness in no manner of way--and not so poor but what they
could have saved every penny and made more of it.  And me--the trouble
I've been at, times and times, to come here and be sisterly--and him
with things on his mind all the while that might make anybody's flesh
creep.  But if the Almighty's allowed it, he means to punish him for
it.  Brother Solomon, I shall be going, if you'll drive me."

"I've no desire to put my foot on the premises again," said Solomon.
"I've got land of my own and property of my own to will away."

"It's a poor tale how luck goes in the world," said Jonah.  "It never
answers to have a bit of spirit in you.  You'd better be a dog in the
manger.  But those above ground might learn a lesson.  One fool's will
is enough in a family."

"There's more ways than one of being a fool," said Solomon.  "I shan't
leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I shan't leave it to
foundlings from Africay.  I like Featherstones that were brewed such,
and not turned Featherstones with sticking the name on 'em."

Solomon addressed these remarks in a loud aside to Mrs. Waule as he
rose to accompany her.  Brother Jonah felt himself capable of much more
stinging wit than this, but he reflected that there was no use in
offending the new proprietor of Stone Court, until you were certain
that he was quite without intentions of hospitality towards witty men
whose name he was about to bear.

Mr. Joshua Rigg, in fact, appeared to trouble himself little about any
innuendoes, but showed a notable change of manner, walking coolly up to
Mr. Standish and putting business questions with much coolness.  He had
a high chirping voice and a vile accent.  Fred, whom he no longer moved
to laughter, thought him the lowest monster he had ever seen.  But Fred
was feeling rather sick.  The Middlemarch mercer waited for an
opportunity of engaging Mr. Rigg in conversation: there was no knowing
how many pairs of legs the new proprietor might require hose for, and
profits were more to be relied on than legacies.  Also, the mercer, as
a second cousin, was dispassionate enough to feel curiosity.

Mr. Vincy, after his one outburst, had remained proudly silent, though
too much preoccupied with unpleasant feelings to think of moving, till
he observed that his wife had gone to Fred's side and was crying
silently while she held her darling's hand.  He rose immediately, and
turning his back on the company while he said to her in an
undertone,--"Don't give way, Lucy; don't make a fool of yourself, my
dear, before these people," he added in his usual loud voice--"Go and
order the phaeton, Fred; I have no time to waste."

Mary Garth had before this been getting ready to go home with her
father.  She met Fred in the hall, and now for the first time had the
courage to look at him. He had that withered sort of paleness which
will sometimes come on young faces, and his hand was very cold when she
shook it.  Mary too was agitated; she was conscious that fatally,
without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to
Fred's lot.

"Good-by," she said, with affectionate sadness.  "Be brave, Fred.  I do
believe you are better without the money.  What was the good of it to
Mr. Featherstone?"

"That's all very fine," said Fred, pettishly.  "What is a fellow to do?
I must go into the Church now."  (He knew that this would vex Mary:
very well; then she must tell him what else he could do.) "And I
thought I should be able to pay your father at once and make everything
right.  And you have not even a hundred pounds left you.  What shall
you do now, Mary?"

"Take another situation, of course, as soon as I can get one.  My
father has enough to do to keep the rest, without me.  Good-by."

In a very short time Stone Court was cleared of well-brewed
Featherstones and other long-accustomed visitors.  Another stranger had
been brought to settle in the neighborhood of Middlemarch, but in the
case of Mr. Rigg Featherstone there was more discontent with immediate
visible consequences than speculation as to the effect which his
presence might have in the future.  No soul was prophetic enough to
have any foreboding as to what might appear on the trial of Joshua Rigg.

And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating a low
subject.  Historical parallels are remarkably efficient in this way.
The chief objection to them is, that the diligent narrator may lack
space, or (what is often the same thing) may not be able to think of
them with any degree of particularity, though he may have a
philosophical confidence that if known they would be illustrative.  It
seems an easier and shorter way to dignity, to observe that--since
there never was a true story which could not be told in parables, where
you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa--whatever has
been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by
being considered a parable; so that if any bad habits and ugly
consequences are brought into view, the reader may have the relief of
regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel, and may feel
himself virtually in company with persons of some style.  Thus while I
tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be
entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the petty sums
which any bankrupt of high standing would be sorry to retire upon, may
be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the
inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers.

As to any provincial history in which the agents are all of high moral
rank, that must be of a date long posterior to the first Reform Bill,
and Peter Featherstone, you perceive, was dead and buried some months
before Lord Grey came into office.

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

completion: All of Featherstone's relatives are gathered to hear the lawyer read Featherstone's will. They're all nervously chattering about how they hope that they were "remembered" by old Featherstone in his will. The lawyer, Mr. Standish, arrives to read the will, and announces that there are actually two wills. He reads the earlier will . The earlier will leaves small sums of money to all the relatives, but the bulk of the money and all the land goes to Joshua Rigg, a man no one has heard of, on condition that he change his name to Featherstone. Everyone is shocked, but there's a second will. The second will still leaves the bulk of the money and the land to Mr. Rigg, but takes away the gifts to the relatives! Everyone is disappointed . Fred Vincy is particularly disappointed, since Featherstone had all but promised the estate to him. Mary feels sorry for him, but figures Fred is better off without the money - maybe it'll make him work for a living.


prompt:
Chapter: "'Tis strange to see the humors of these men,
     These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise:
       .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
     For being the nature of great spirits to love
     To be where they may be most eminent;
     They, rating of themselves so farre above
     Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent,
     Imagine how we wonder and esteeme
     All that they do or say; which makes them strive
     To make our admiration more extreme,
     Which they suppose they cannot, 'less they give
     Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts.
                                --DANIEL: Tragedy of Philotas.

Mr. Vincy went home from the reading of the will with his point of view
considerably changed in relation to many subjects.  He was an
open-minded man, but given to indirect modes of expressing himself:
when he was disappointed in a market for his silk braids, he swore at
the groom; when his brother-in-law Bulstrode had vexed him, he made
cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now apparent that he regarded
Fred's idleness with a sudden increase of severity, by his throwing an
embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to the hall-floor.

"Well, sir," he observed, when that young gentleman was moving off to
bed, "I hope you've made up your mind now to go up next term and pass
your examination.  I've taken my resolution, so I advise you to lose no
time in taking yours."

Fred made no answer: he was too utterly depressed.  Twenty-four hours
ago he had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do,
he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing: that he
should hunt in pink, have a first-rate hunter, ride to cover on a fine
hack, and be generally respected for doing so; moreover, that he should
be able at once to pay Mr. Garth, and that Mary could no longer have
any reason for not marrying him.  And all this was to have come without
study or other inconvenience, purely by the favor of providence in the
shape of an old gentleman's caprice.  But now, at the end of the
twenty-four hours, all those firm expectations were upset.  It was
"rather hard lines" that while he was smarting under this
disappointment he should be treated as if he could have helped it.  But
he went away silently and his mother pleaded for him.

"Don't be hard on the poor boy, Vincy.  He'll turn out well yet, though
that wicked man has deceived him.  I feel as sure as I sit here, Fred
will turn out well--else why was he brought back from the brink of the
grave?  And I call it a robbery: it was like giving him the land, to
promise it; and what is promising, if making everybody believe is not
promising?  And you see he did leave him ten thousand pounds, and then
took it away again."

"Took it away again!" said Mr. Vincy, pettishly.  "I tell you the lad's
an unlucky lad, Lucy.  And you've always spoiled him."

"Well, Vincy, he was my first, and you made a fine fuss with him when
he came.  You were as proud as proud," said Mrs. Vincy, easily
recovering her cheerful smile.

"Who knows what babies will turn to?  I was fool enough, I dare say,"
said the husband--more mildly, however.

"But who has handsomer, better children than ours?  Fred is far beyond
other people's sons: you may hear it in his speech, that he has kept
college company.  And Rosamond--where is there a girl like her?  She
might stand beside any lady in the land, and only look the better for
it.  You see--Mr. Lydgate has kept the highest company and been
everywhere, and he fell in love with her at once.  Not but what I could
have wished Rosamond had not engaged herself.  She might have met
somebody on a visit who would have been a far better match; I mean at
her schoolfellow Miss Willoughby's. There are relations in that family
quite as high as Mr. Lydgate's."

"Damn relations!" said Mr. Vincy; "I've had enough of them.  I don't
want a son-in-law who has got nothing but his relations to recommend
him."

"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, "you seemed as pleased as could be
about it.  It's true, I wasn't at home; but Rosamond told me you hadn't
a word to say against the engagement.  And she has begun to buy in the
best linen and cambric for her underclothing."

"Not by my will," said Mr. Vincy.  "I shall have enough to do this
year, with an idle scamp of a son, without paying for wedding-clothes.
The times are as tight as can be; everybody is being ruined; and I
don't believe Lydgate has got a farthing.  I shan't give my consent to
their marrying.  Let 'em wait, as their elders have done before 'em."

"Rosamond will take it hard, Vincy, and you know you never could bear
to cross her."

"Yes, I could.  The sooner the engagement's off, the better.  I don't
believe he'll ever make an income, the way he goes on.  He makes
enemies; that's all I hear of his making."

"But he stands very high with Mr. Bulstrode, my dear.  The marriage
would please _him_, I should think."

"Please the deuce!" said Mr. Vincy.  "Bulstrode won't pay for their
keep.  And if Lydgate thinks I'm going to give money for them to set up
housekeeping, he's mistaken, that's all.  I expect I shall have to put
down my horses soon.  You'd better tell Rosy what I say."

This was a not infrequent procedure with Mr. Vincy--to be rash in
jovial assent, and on becoming subsequently conscious that he had been
rash, to employ others in making the offensive retractation.  However,
Mrs. Vincy, who never willingly opposed her husband, lost no time the
next morning in letting Rosamond know what he had said.  Rosamond,
examining some muslin-work, listened in silence, and at the end gave a
certain turn of her graceful neck, of which only long experience could
teach you that it meant perfect obstinacy.

"What do you say, my dear?" said her mother, with affectionate
deference.

"Papa does not mean anything of the kind," said Rosamond, quite calmly.
"He has always said that he wished me to marry the man I loved.  And I
shall marry Mr. Lydgate.  It is seven weeks now since papa gave his
consent.  And I hope we shall have Mrs. Bretton's house."

"Well, my dear, I shall leave you to manage your papa.  You always do
manage everybody.  But if we ever do go and get damask, Sadler's is the
place--far better than Hopkins's. Mrs. Bretton's is very large, though:
I should love you to have such a house; but it will take a great deal
of furniture--carpeting and everything, besides plate and glass.  And
you hear, your papa says he will give no money.  Do you think Mr.
Lydgate expects it?"

"You cannot imagine that I should ask him, mamma.  Of course he
understands his own affairs."

"But he may have been looking for money, my dear, and we all thought of
your having a pretty legacy as well as Fred;--and now everything is so
dreadful--there's no pleasure in thinking of anything, with that poor
boy disappointed as he is."

"That has nothing to do with my marriage, mamma.  Fred must leave off
being idle.  I am going up-stairs to take this work to Miss Morgan: she
does the open hemming very well.  Mary Garth might do some work for me
now, I should think.  Her sewing is exquisite; it is the nicest thing I
know about Mary.  I should so like to have all my cambric frilling
double-hemmed. And it takes a long time."

Mrs. Vincy's belief that Rosamond could manage her papa was well
founded.  Apart from his dinners and his coursing, Mr. Vincy,
blustering as he was, had as little of his own way as if he had been a
prime minister: the force of circumstances was easily too much for him,
as it is for most pleasure-loving florid men; and the circumstance
called Rosamond was particularly forcible by means of that mild
persistence which, as we know, enables a white soft living substance to
make its way in spite of opposing rock.  Papa was not a rock: he had no
other fixity than that fixity of alternating impulses sometimes called
habit, and this was altogether unfavorable to his taking the only
decisive line of conduct in relation to his daughter's
engagement--namely, to inquire thoroughly into Lydgate's circumstances,
declare his own inability to furnish money, and forbid alike either a
speedy marriage or an engagement which must be too lengthy.  That seems
very simple and easy in the statement; but a disagreeable resolve
formed in the chill hours of the morning had as many conditions against
it as the early frost, and rarely persisted under the warming
influences of the day.  The indirect though emphatic expression of
opinion to which Mr. Vincy was prone suffered much restraint in this
case: Lydgate was a proud man towards whom innuendoes were obviously
unsafe, and throwing his hat on the floor was out of the question.  Mr.
Vincy was a little in awe of him, a little vain that he wanted to marry
Rosamond, a little indisposed to raise a question of money in which his
own position was not advantageous, a little afraid of being worsted in
dialogue with a man better educated and more highly bred than himself,
and a little afraid of doing what his daughter would not like.  The
part Mr. Vincy preferred playing was that of the generous host whom
nobody criticises.  In the earlier half of the day there was business
to hinder any formal communication of an adverse resolve; in the later
there was dinner, wine, whist, and general satisfaction.  And in the
mean while the hours were each leaving their little deposit and
gradually forming the final reason for inaction, namely, that action
was too late.  The accepted lover spent most of his evenings in Lowick
Gate, and a love-making not at all dependent on money-advances from
fathers-in-law, or prospective income from a profession, went on
flourishingly under Mr. Vincy's own eyes.  Young love-making--that
gossamer web!  Even the points it clings to--the things whence its
subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary
touches of fingertips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs,
unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest
tremors.  The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable
joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness,
indefinite trust.  And Lydgate fell to spinning that web from his
inward self with wonderful rapidity, in spite of experience supposed to
be finished off with the drama of Laure--in spite too of medicine and
biology; for the inspection of macerated muscle or of eyes presented in
a dish (like Santa Lucia's), and other incidents of scientific inquiry,
are observed to be less incompatible with poetic love than a native
dulness or a lively addiction to the lowest prose.  As for Rosamond,
she was in the water-lily's expanding wonderment at its own fuller
life, and she too was spinning industriously at the mutual web.  All
this went on in the corner of the drawing-room where the piano stood,
and subtle as it was, the light made it a sort of rainbow visible to
many observers besides Mr. Farebrother.  The certainty that Miss Vincy
and Mr. Lydgate were engaged became general in Middlemarch without the
aid of formal announcement.

Aunt Bulstrode was again stirred to anxiety; but this time she
addressed herself to her brother, going to the warehouse expressly to
avoid Mrs. Vincy's volatility.  His replies were not satisfactory.

"Walter, you never mean to tell me that you have allowed all this to go
on without inquiry into Mr. Lydgate's prospects?" said Mrs. Bulstrode,
opening her eyes with wider gravity at her brother, who was in his
peevish warehouse humor.  "Think of this girl brought up in luxury--in
too worldly a way, I am sorry to say--what will she do on a small
income?"

"Oh, confound it, Harriet! What can I do when men come into the town
without any asking of mine?  Did you shut your house up against
Lydgate?  Bulstrode has pushed him forward more than anybody.  I never
made any fuss about the young fellow.  You should go and talk to your
husband about it, not me."

"Well, really, Walter, how can Mr. Bulstrode be to blame?  I am sure he
did not wish for the engagement."

"Oh, if Bulstrode had not taken him by the hand, I should never have
invited him."

"But you called him in to attend on Fred, and I am sure that was a
mercy," said Mrs. Bulstrode, losing her clew in the intricacies of the
subject.

"I don't know about mercy," said Mr. Vincy, testily.  "I know I am
worried more than I like with my family.  I was a good brother to you,
Harriet, before you married Bulstrode, and I must say he doesn't always
show that friendly spirit towards your family that might have been
expected of him."  Mr. Vincy was very little like a Jesuit, but no
accomplished Jesuit could have turned a question more adroitly.
Harriet had to defend her husband instead of blaming her brother, and
the conversation ended at a point as far from the beginning as some
recent sparring between the brothers-in-law at a vestry meeting.

Mrs. Bulstrode did not repeat her brother's complaints to her husband,
but in the evening she spoke to him of Lydgate and Rosamond.  He did
not share her warm interest, however; and only spoke with resignation
of the risks attendant on the beginning of medical practice and the
desirability of prudence.

"I am sure we are bound to pray for that thoughtless girl--brought up
as she has been," said Mrs. Bulstrode, wishing to rouse her husband's
feelings.

"Truly, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode, assentingly.  "Those who are not
of this world can do little else to arrest the errors of the
obstinately worldly.  That is what we must accustom ourselves to
recognize with regard to your brother's family.  I could have wished
that Mr. Lydgate had not entered into such a union; but my relations
with him are limited to that use of his gifts for God's purposes which
is taught us by the divine government under each dispensation."

Mrs. Bulstrode said no more, attributing some dissatisfaction which she
felt to her own want of spirituality.  She believed that her husband
was one of those men whose memoirs should be written when they died.

As to Lydgate himself, having been accepted, he was prepared to accept
all the consequences which he believed himself to foresee with perfect
clearness.  Of course he must be married in a year--perhaps even in
half a year.  This was not what he had intended; but other schemes
would not be hindered: they would simply adjust themselves anew.
Marriage, of course, must be prepared for in the usual way.  A house
must be taken instead of the rooms he at present occupied; and Lydgate,
having heard Rosamond speak with admiration of old Mrs. Bretton's house
(situated in Lowick Gate), took notice when it fell vacant after the
old lady's death, and immediately entered into treaty for it.

He did this in an episodic way, very much as he gave orders to his
tailor for every requisite of perfect dress, without any notion of
being extravagant.  On the contrary, he would have despised any
ostentation of expense; his profession had familiarized him with all
grades of poverty, and he cared much for those who suffered hardships.
He would have behaved perfectly at a table where the sauce was served
in a jug with the handle off, and he would have remembered nothing
about a grand dinner except that a man was there who talked well.  But
it had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what
he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and
excellent waiting at table.  In warming himself at French social
theories he had brought away no smell of scorching.  We may handle even
extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture, our dinner-giving,
and preference for armorial bearings in our own case, link us
indissolubly with the established order.  And Lydgate's tendency was
not towards extreme opinions: he would have liked no barefooted
doctrines, being particular about his boots: he was no radical in
relation to anything but medical reform and the prosecution of
discovery.  In the rest of practical life he walked by hereditary
habit; half from that personal pride and unreflecting egoism which I
have already called commonness, and half from that naivete which
belonged to preoccupation with favorite ideas.

Any inward debate Lydgate had as to the consequences of this engagement
which had stolen upon him, turned on the paucity of time rather than of
money.  Certainly, being in love and being expected continually by some
one who always turned out to be prettier than memory could represent
her to be, did interfere with the diligent use of spare hours which
might serve some "plodding fellow of a German" to make the great,
imminent discovery.  This was really an argument for not deferring the
marriage too long, as he implied to Mr. Farebrother, one day that the
Vicar came to his room with some pond-products which he wanted to
examine under a better microscope than his own, and, finding Lydgate's
tableful of apparatus and specimens in confusion, said sarcastically--

"Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and
now he brings back chaos."

"Yes, at some stages," said Lydgate, lifting his brows and smiling,
while he began to arrange his microscope.  "But a better order will
begin after."

"Soon?" said the Vicar.

"I hope so, really.  This unsettled state of affairs uses up the time,
and when one has notions in science, every moment is an opportunity.  I
feel sure that marriage must be the best thing for a man who wants to
work steadily.  He has everything at home then--no teasing with
personal speculations--he can get calmness and freedom."

"You are an enviable dog," said the Vicar, "to have such a
prospect--Rosamond, calmness and freedom, all to your share.  Here am
I with nothing but my pipe and pond-animalcules. Now, are you ready?"

Lydgate did not mention to the Vicar another reason he had for wishing
to shorten the period of courtship.  It was rather irritating to him,
even with the wine of love in his veins, to be obliged to mingle so
often with the family party at the Vincys', and to enter so much into
Middlemarch gossip, protracted good cheer, whist-playing, and general
futility.  He had to be deferential when Mr. Vincy decided questions
with trenchant ignorance, especially as to those liquors which were the
best inward pickle, preserving you from the effects of bad air.  Mrs.
Vincy's openness and simplicity were quite unstreaked with suspicion as
to the subtle offence she might give to the taste of her intended
son-in-law; and altogether Lydgate had to confess to himself that he
was descending a little in relation to Rosamond's family.  But that
exquisite creature herself suffered in the same sort of way:--it was
at least one delightful thought that in marrying her, he could give her
a much-needed transplantation.

"Dear!" he said to her one evening, in his gentlest tone, as he sat
down by her and looked closely at her face--

But I must first say that he had found her alone in the drawing-room,
where the great old-fashioned window, almost as large as the side of
the room, was opened to the summer scents of the garden at the back of
the house.  Her father and mother were gone to a party, and the rest
were all out with the butterflies.

"Dear! your eyelids are red."

"Are they?" said Rosamond.  "I wonder why."  It was not in her nature
to pour forth wishes or grievances.  They only came forth gracefully on
solicitation.

"As if you could hide it from me!" said Lydgate, laying his hand
tenderly on both of hers.  "Don't I see a tiny drop on one of the
lashes?  Things trouble you, and you don't tell me.  That is unloving."

"Why should I tell you what you cannot alter?  They are every-day
things:--perhaps they have been a little worse lately."

"Family annoyances.  Don't fear speaking.  I guess them."

"Papa has been more irritable lately.  Fred makes him angry, and this
morning there was a fresh quarrel because Fred threatens to throw his
whole education away, and do something quite beneath him.  And
besides--"

Rosamond hesitated, and her cheeks were gathering a slight flush.
Lydgate had never seen her in trouble since the morning of their
engagement, and he had never felt so passionately towards her as at
this moment.  He kissed the hesitating lips gently, as if to encourage
them.

"I feel that papa is not quite pleased about our engagement," Rosamond
continued, almost in a whisper; "and he said last night that he should
certainly speak to you and say it must be given up."

"Will you give it up?" said Lydgate, with quick energy--almost angrily.

"I never give up anything that I choose to do," said Rosamond,
recovering her calmness at the touching of this chord.

"God bless you!" said Lydgate, kissing her again.  This constancy of
purpose in the right place was adorable.  He went on:--

"It is too late now for your father to say that our engagement must be
given up.  You are of age, and I claim you as mine.  If anything is
done to make you unhappy,--that is a reason for hastening our marriage."

An unmistakable delight shone forth from the blue eyes that met his,
and the radiance seemed to light up all his future with mild sunshine.
Ideal happiness (of the kind known in the Arabian Nights, in which you
are invited to step from the labor and discord of the street into a
paradise where everything is given to you and nothing claimed) seemed
to be an affair of a few weeks' waiting, more or less.

"Why should we defer it?" he said, with ardent insistence.  "I have
taken the house now: everything else can soon be got ready--can it
not?  You will not mind about new clothes.  Those can be bought
afterwards."

"What original notions you clever men have!" said Rosamond, dimpling
with more thorough laughter than usual at this humorous incongruity.
"This is the first time I ever heard of wedding-clothes being bought
after marriage."

"But you don't mean to say you would insist on my waiting months for
the sake of clothes?" said Lydgate, half thinking that Rosamond was
tormenting him prettily, and half fearing that she really shrank from
speedy marriage.  "Remember, we are looking forward to a better sort of
happiness even than this--being continually together, independent of
others, and ordering our lives as we will.  Come, dear, tell me how
soon you can be altogether mine."

There was a serious pleading in Lydgate's tone, as if he felt that she
would be injuring him by any fantastic delays.  Rosamond became serious
too, and slightly meditative; in fact, she was going through many
intricacies of lace-edging and hosiery and petticoat-tucking, in order
to give an answer that would at least be approximative.

"Six weeks would be ample--say so, Rosamond," insisted Lydgate,
releasing her hands to put his arm gently round her.

One little hand immediately went to pat her hair, while she gave her
neck a meditative turn, and then said seriously--

"There would be the house-linen and the furniture to be prepared.
Still, mamma could see to those while we were away."

"Yes, to be sure.  We must be away a week or so."

"Oh, more than that!" said Rosamond, earnestly.  She was thinking of
her evening dresses for the visit to Sir Godwin Lydgate's, which she
had long been secretly hoping for as a delightful employment of at
least one quarter of the honeymoon, even if she deferred her
introduction to the uncle who was a doctor of divinity (also a pleasing
though sober kind of rank, when sustained by blood). She looked at her
lover with some wondering remonstrance as she spoke, and he readily
understood that she might wish to lengthen the sweet time of double
solitude.

"Whatever you wish, my darling, when the day is fixed.  But let us take
a decided course, and put an end to any discomfort you may be
suffering.  Six weeks!--I am sure they would be ample."

"I could certainly hasten the work," said Rosamond.  "Will you, then,
mention it to papa?--I think it would be better to write to him." She
blushed and looked at him as the garden flowers look at us when we walk
forth happily among them in the transcendent evening light: is there
not a soul beyond utterance, half nymph, half child, in those delicate
petals which glow and breathe about the centres of deep color?

He touched her ear and a little bit of neck under it with his lips, and
they sat quite still for many minutes which flowed by them like a small
gurgling brook with the kisses of the sun upon it.  Rosamond thought
that no one could be more in love than she was; and Lydgate thought
that after all his wild mistakes and absurd credulity, he had found
perfect womanhood--felt as if already breathed upon by exquisite wedded
affection such as would be bestowed by an accomplished creature who
venerated his high musings and momentous labors and would never
interfere with them; who would create order in the home and accounts
with still magic, yet keep her fingers ready to touch the lute and
transform life into romance at any moment; who was instructed to the
true womanly limit and not a hair's-breadth beyond--docile, therefore,
and ready to carry out behests which came from that limit.  It was
plainer now than ever that his notion of remaining much longer a
bachelor had been a mistake: marriage would not be an obstruction but a
furtherance.  And happening the next day to accompany a patient to
Brassing, he saw a dinner-service there which struck him as so exactly
the right thing that he bought it at once.  It saved time to do these
things just when you thought of them, and Lydgate hated ugly crockery.
The dinner-service in question was expensive, but that might be in the
nature of dinner-services. Furnishing was necessarily expensive; but
then it had to be done only once.

"It must be lovely," said Mrs. Vincy, when Lydgate mentioned his
purchase with some descriptive touches.  "Just what Rosy ought to have.
I trust in heaven it won't be broken!"

"One must hire servants who will not break things," said Lydgate.
(Certainly, this was reasoning with an imperfect vision of sequences.
But at that period there was no sort of reasoning which was not more or
less sanctioned by men of science.)

Of course it was unnecessary to defer the mention of anything to mamma,
who did not readily take views that were not cheerful, and being a
happy wife herself, had hardly any feeling but pride in her daughter's
marriage.  But Rosamond had good reasons for suggesting to Lydgate that
papa should be appealed to in writing.  She prepared for the arrival of
the letter by walking with her papa to the warehouse the next morning,
and telling him on the way that Mr. Lydgate wished to be married soon.

"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mr. Vincy.  "What has he got to marry on?
You'd much better give up the engagement.  I've told you so pretty
plainly before this.  What have you had such an education for, if you
are to go and marry a poor man?  It's a cruel thing for a father to
see."

"Mr. Lydgate is not poor, papa.  He bought Mr. Peacock's practice,
which, they say, is worth eight or nine hundred a-year."

"Stuff and nonsense!  What's buying a practice?  He might as well buy
next year's swallows.  It'll all slip through his fingers."

"On the contrary, papa, he will increase the practice.  See how he has
been called in by the Chettams and Casaubons."

"I hope he knows I shan't give anything--with this disappointment about
Fred, and Parliament going to be dissolved, and machine-breaking
everywhere, and an election coming on--"

"Dear papa! what can that have to do with my marriage?"

"A pretty deal to do with it!  We may all be ruined for what I know--the
country's in that state!  Some say it's the end of the world, and
be hanged if I don't think it looks like it!  Anyhow, it's not a time
for me to be drawing money out of my business, and I should wish
Lydgate to know that."

"I am sure he expects nothing, papa.  And he has such very high
connections: he is sure to rise in one way or another.  He is engaged
in making scientific discoveries."

Mr. Vincy was silent.

"I cannot give up my only prospect of happiness, papa. Mr. Lydgate is a
gentleman.  I could never love any one who was not a perfect gentleman.
You would not like me to go into a consumption, as Arabella Hawley did.
And you know that I never change my mind."

Again papa was silent.

"Promise me, papa, that you will consent to what we wish.  We shall
never give each other up; and you know that you have always objected to
long courtships and late marriages."

There was a little more urgency of this kind, till Mr. Vincy said,
"Well, well, child, he must write to me first before I can answer
him,"--and Rosamond was certain that she had gained her point.

Mr. Vincy's answer consisted chiefly in a demand that Lydgate should
insure his life--a demand immediately conceded.  This was a
delightfully reassuring idea supposing that Lydgate died, but in the
mean time not a self-supporting idea.  However, it seemed to make
everything comfortable about Rosamond's marriage; and the necessary
purchases went on with much spirit.  Not without prudential
considerations, however.  A bride (who is going to visit at a
baronet's) must have a few first-rate pocket-handkerchiefs; but beyond
the absolutely necessary half-dozen, Rosamond contented herself without
the very highest style of embroidery and Valenciennes.  Lydgate also,
finding that his sum of eight hundred pounds had been considerably
reduced since he had come to Middlemarch, restrained his inclination
for some plate of an old pattern which was shown to him when he went
into Kibble's establishment at Brassing to buy forks and spoons.  He
was too proud to act as if he presupposed that Mr. Vincy would advance
money to provide furniture; and though, since it would not be
necessary to pay for everything at once, some bills would be left
standing over, he did not waste time in conjecturing how much his
father-in-law would give in the form of dowry, to make payment easy.
He was not going to do anything extravagant, but the requisite things
must be bought, and it would be bad economy to buy them of a poor
quality.  All these matters were by the bye.  Lydgate foresaw that
science and his profession were the objects he should alone pursue
enthusiastically; but he could not imagine himself pursuing them in
such a home as Wrench had--the doors all open, the oil-cloth worn, the
children in soiled pinafores, and lunch lingering in the form of bones,
black-handled knives, and willow-pattern. But Wrench had a wretched
lymphatic wife who made a mummy of herself indoors in a large shawl;
and he must have altogether begun with an ill-chosen domestic apparatus.

Rosamond, however, was on her side much occupied with conjectures,
though her quick imitative perception warned her against betraying them
too crudely.

"I shall like so much to know your family," she said one day, when the
wedding journey was being discussed.  "We might perhaps take a
direction that would allow us to see them as we returned.  Which of
your uncles do you like best?"

"Oh,--my uncle Godwin, I think.  He is a good-natured old fellow."

"You were constantly at his house at Quallingham, when you were a boy,
were you not?  I should so like to see the old spot and everything you
were used to.  Does he know you are going to be married?"

"No," said Lydgate, carelessly, turning in his chair and rubbing his
hair up.

"Do send him word of it, you naughty undutiful nephew.  He will perhaps
ask you to take me to Quallingham; and then you could show me about the
grounds, and I could imagine you there when you were a boy.  Remember,
you see me in my home, just as it has been since I was a child.  It is
not fair that I should be so ignorant of yours.  But perhaps you would
be a little ashamed of me.  I forgot that."

Lydgate smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted the suggestion that
the proud pleasure of showing so charming a bride was worth some
trouble.  And now he came to think of it, he would like to see the old
spots with Rosamond.

"I will write to him, then.  But my cousins are bores."

It seemed magnificent to Rosamond to be able to speak so slightingly of
a baronet's family, and she felt much contentment in the prospect of
being able to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.

But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later, by saying--

"I hope your uncle Sir Godwin will not look down on Rosy, Mr. Lydgate.
I should think he would do something handsome.  A thousand or two can
be nothing to a baronet."

"Mamma!" said Rosamond, blushing deeply; and Lydgate pitied her so much
that he remained silent and went to the other end of the room to
examine a print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded. Mamma had a
little filial lecture afterwards, and was docile as usual.  But
Rosamond reflected that if any of those high-bred cousins who were
bores, should be induced to visit Middlemarch, they would see many
things in her own family which might shock them.  Hence it seemed
desirable that Lydgate should by-and-by get some first-rate position
elsewhere than in Middlemarch; and this could hardly be difficult in
the case of a man who had a titled uncle and could make discoveries.
Lydgate, you perceive, had talked fervidly to Rosamond of his hopes as
to the highest uses of his life, and had found it delightful to be
listened to by a creature who would bring him the sweet furtherance of
satisfying affection--beauty--repose--such help as our thoughts get
from the summer sky and the flower-fringed meadows.

Lydgate relied much on the psychological difference between what for
the sake of variety I will call goose and gander: especially on the
innate submissiveness of the goose as beautifully corresponding to the
strength of the gander.

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

completion: Fred is depressed. Twenty-four hours ago, he thought that he would be rich and able to pay back Mr. Garth and marry Mary Garth without having to work for it. His father now wants him to commit to becoming a clergyman, but Fred still doesn't think he's cut out for it. Mr. Vincy is grumpy enough about Fred that he says he wants to Rosamond to put off her engagement to Lydgate until Lydgate has a better income. But Rosamond knows how to manage her father. She has a stubborn streak, and he knows it. Mrs. Bulstrode doesn't like the engagement, either - she's worried that her niece Rosamond won't be able to live happily without a huge house, fancy furniture, and expensive clothes. And she's probably right. Lydgate himself thinks that it's perfectly natural to rent a nice house and buy "good" furniture. He's not trying to be extravagant, but he just doesn't know any other way to live. When Lydgate learns that Mr. Vincy was encouraging Rosamond to break up with him, he persuades her to get married even sooner. She asks him to write to her father, and then Rosamond tells her father in person, herself. Her father's stubbornness is nothing to hers, and so he agrees to a quick marriage. Meanwhile, Rosamond still wants to meet Mr. Lydgate's fancy aristocratic relatives. She beats around the bush a little, and finally charms him into agreeing to swing by the family estate to meet his uncle and cousins on their way back from their honeymoon.