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 relatives begin to pop out and appear, and all expect that he will die soon, and will leave them some bit of money, since he is their rich relation. They all expect that he should do something for them, that he owes them money because they are relatives; they do not consider that they have done nothing for him, but are like vultures circling, waiting to pick up his money once he dies. Mr. Featherstone wants to see none of the greedy, crowding relatives; Mary Garth has to try and turn them away, but doesn't have the heart for the task. Mrs. Vincy hovers around, sure that Fred will receive most of the property and money anyway, as Featherstone regards and treats them so much better than his other relatives. Trumbull, an auctioneer and assistant to Featherstone in business matters, is the other person who Featherstone shows any regard for; on the basis of behavior alone, it would seem that these people would receive most from Featherstone's will. Mary Garth must put up with the various visitors and their varying degrees of rudeness, but manages to stay calm and make the constant crush of daytime visitors as comfortable as she can.


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 with Mr. Featherstone at night, as she usually does, reflecting on the events of the day, and sitting in silence, for the most part. She figures that the issue of Featherstone's will shall disappoint everyone involved. Mr. Featherstone suddenly tells her to open the chest with his will in it, and burn one of them; Mary refuses, even when she is offered a sizable amount of money to do so. Mary is scared of his sudden energy, and does not think that he is in his right mind; Mr. Featherstone drifts off to sleep, and by the morning he is dead.


prompt:
Chapter: This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love
    Ages ago in finest ivory;
    Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines
    Of generous womanhood that fits all time
    That too is costly ware; majolica
    Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:
    The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful
    As mere Faience! a table ornament
    To suit the richest mounting."

Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally
drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity
such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three
miles of a town.  Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk, she
determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to see
Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt any
depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her, and
whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself.  She felt
almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but the
dread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance which would make
her unjust or hard--overcame every scruple.  That there had been some
crisis in her husband's mind she was certain: he had the very next day
begun a new method of arranging his notes, and had associated her quite
newly in carrying out his plan.  Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores
of patience.

It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in Lowick
Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home, that she
had written beforehand.  And he was not at home.

"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea, who had never, that she knew
of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage.  Yes,
Mrs. Lydgate was at home.

"I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me.  Will you ask her
if she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?"

When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hear
sounds of music through an open window--a few notes from a man's voice
and then a piano bursting into roulades.  But the roulades broke off
suddenly, and then the servant came back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would
be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.

When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was a
sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits of the
different ranks were less blent than now.  Let those who know, tell us
exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days of mild
autumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch and soft to the
eye.  It always seemed to have been lately washed, and to smell of the
sweet hedges--was always in the shape of a pelisse with sleeves hanging
all out of the fashion.  Yet if she had entered before a still audience
as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right
enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her
simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then
in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold
trencher we call a halo.  By the present audience of two persons, no
dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs.
Casaubon.  To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not
mixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or
appearance were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without
satisfaction that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying
_her_. What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the
best judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments at
Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression she
must make on people of good birth.  Dorothea put out her hand with her
usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's lovely
bride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance, but
seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle.  The gentleman
was too much occupied with the presence of the one woman to reflect on
the contrast between the two--a contrast that would certainly have been
striking to a calm observer.  They were both tall, and their eyes were
on a level; but imagine Rosamond's infantine blondness and wondrous
crown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue dress of a fit and fashion so
perfect that no dressmaker could look at it without emotion, a large
embroidered collar which it was to be hoped all beholders would know
the price of, her small hands duly set off with rings, and that
controlled self-consciousness of manner which is the expensive
substitute for simplicity.

"Thank you very much for allowing me to interrupt you," said Dorothea,
immediately.  "I am anxious to see Mr. Lydgate, if possible, before I
go home, and I hoped that you might possibly tell me where I could find
him, or even allow me to wait for him, if you expect him soon."

"He is at the New Hospital," said Rosamond; "I am not sure how soon he
will come home.  But I can send for him."

"Will you let me go and fetch him?" said Will Ladislaw, coming forward.
He had already taken up his hat before Dorothea entered.  She colored
with surprise, but put out her hand with a smile of unmistakable
pleasure, saying--

"I did not know it was you: I had no thought of seeing you here."

"May I go to the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate that you wish to see
him?" said Will.

"It would be quicker to send the carriage for him," said Dorothea, "if
you will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman."

Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed in an
instant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said, "I will
go myself, thank you.  I wish to lose no time before getting home
again.  I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there.  Pray
excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate.  I am very much obliged to you."

Her mind was evidently arrested by some sudden thought, and she left
the room hardly conscious of what was immediately around her--hardly
conscious that Will opened the door for her and offered her his arm to
lead her to the carriage.  She took the arm but said nothing.  Will was
feeling rather vexed and miserable, and found nothing to say on his
side.  He handed her into the carriage in silence, they said good-by,
and Dorothea drove away.

In the five minutes' drive to the Hospital she had time for some
reflections that were quite new to her.  Her decision to go, and her
preoccupation in leaving the room, had come from the sudden sense that
there would be a sort of deception in her voluntarily allowing any
further intercourse between herself and Will which she was unable to
mention to her husband, and already her errand in seeking Lydgate was a
matter of concealment.  That was all that had been explicitly in her
mind; but she had been urged also by a vague discomfort.  Now that she
was alone in her drive, she heard the notes of the man's voice and the
accompanying piano, which she had not noted much at the time, returning
on her inward sense; and she found herself thinking with some wonder
that Will Ladislaw was passing his time with Mrs. Lydgate in her
husband's absence.  And then she could not help remembering that he had
passed some time with her under like circumstances, so why should there
be any unfitness in the fact?  But Will was Mr. Casaubon's relative,
and one towards whom she was bound to show kindness.  Still there had
been signs which perhaps she ought to have understood as implying that
Mr. Casaubon did not like his cousin's visits during his own absence.
"Perhaps I have been mistaken in many things," said poor Dorothea to
herself, while the tears came rolling and she had to dry them quickly.
She felt confusedly unhappy, and the image of Will which had been so
clear to her before was mysteriously spoiled.  But the carriage stopped
at the gate of the Hospital.  She was soon walking round the grass
plots with Lydgate, and her feelings recovered the strong bent which
had made her seek for this interview.

Will Ladislaw, meanwhile, was mortified, and knew the reason of it
clearly enough.  His chances of meeting Dorothea were rare; and here
for the first time there had come a chance which had set him at a
disadvantage.  It was not only, as it had been hitherto, that she was
not supremely occupied with him, but that she had seen him under
circumstances in which he might appear not to be supremely occupied
with her.  He felt thrust to a new distance from her, amongst the
circles of Middlemarchers who made no part of her life.  But that was
not his fault: of course, since he had taken his lodgings in the town,
he had been making as many acquaintances as he could, his position
requiring that he should know everybody and everything.  Lydgate was
really better worth knowing than any one else in the neighborhood, and
he happened to have a wife who was musical and altogether worth calling
upon.  Here was the whole history of the situation in which Diana had
descended too unexpectedly on her worshipper.  It was mortifying.  Will
was conscious that he should not have been at Middlemarch but for
Dorothea; and yet his position there was threatening to divide him from
her with those barriers of habitual sentiment which are more fatal to
the persistence of mutual interest than all the distance between Rome
and Britain.  Prejudices about rank and status were easy enough to defy
in the form of a tyrannical letter from Mr. Casaubon; but prejudices,
like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle--solid
as the pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo, or as
the memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness.  And Will was
of a temperament to feel keenly the presence of subtleties: a man of
clumsier perceptions would not have felt, as he did, that for the first
time some sense of unfitness in perfect freedom with him had sprung up
in Dorothea's mind, and that their silence, as he conducted her to the
carriage, had had a chill in it.  Perhaps Casaubon, in his hatred and
jealousy, had been insisting to Dorothea that Will had slid below her
socially.  Confound Casaubon!

Will re-entered the drawing-room, took up his hat, and looking
irritated as he advanced towards Mrs. Lydgate, who had seated herself
at her work-table, said--

"It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.  May I come
another day and just finish about the rendering of 'Lungi dal caro
bene'?"

"I shall be happy to be taught," said Rosamond.  "But I am sure you
admit that the interruption was a very beautiful one.  I quite envy
your acquaintance with Mrs. Casaubon.  Is she very clever?  She looks
as if she were."

"Really, I never thought about it," said Will, sulkily.

"That is just the answer Tertius gave me, when I first asked him if she
were handsome.  What is it that you gentlemen are thinking of when you
are with Mrs. Casaubon?"

"Herself," said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming Mrs.
Lydgate.  "When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her
attributes--one is conscious of her presence."

"I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick," said Rosamond,
dimpling, and speaking with aery lightness.  "He will come back and
think nothing of me."

"That does not seem to have been the effect on Lydgate hitherto.  Mrs.
Casaubon is too unlike other women for them to be compared with her."

"You are a devout worshipper, I perceive.  You often see her, I
suppose."

"No," said Will, almost pettishly.  "Worship is usually a matter of
theory rather than of practice.  But I am practising it to excess just
at this moment--I must really tear myself away."

"Pray come again some evening: Mr. Lydgate will like to hear the music,
and I cannot enjoy it so well without him."

When her husband was at home again, Rosamond said, standing in front of
him and holding his coat-collar with both her hands, "Mr. Ladislaw was
here singing with me when Mrs. Casaubon came in.  He seemed vexed.  Do
you think he disliked her seeing him at our house?  Surely your
position is more than equal to his--whatever may be his relation to the
Casaubons."

"No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed, Ladislaw is
a sort of gypsy; he thinks nothing of leather and prunella."

"Music apart, he is not always very agreeable.  Do you like him?"

"Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and
bric-a-brac, but likable."

"Do you know, I think he adores Mrs. Casaubon."

"Poor devil!" said Lydgate, smiling and pinching his wife's ears.

Rosamond felt herself beginning to know a great deal of the world,
especially in discovering what when she was in her unmarried girlhood
had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone
costumes--that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and
enslave men.  At that time young ladies in the country, even when
educated at Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later than
Racine, and public prints had not cast their present magnificent
illumination over the scandals of life.  Still, vanity, with a woman's
whole mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight
hints, especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefinite
conquests.  How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage
with a husband as crown-prince by your side--himself in fact a
subject--while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their
rest probably, and if their appetite too, so much the better!  But
Rosamond's romance turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, and
it was enough to enjoy his assured subjection.  When he said, "Poor
devil!" she asked, with playful curiosity--

"Why so?"

"Why, what can a man do when he takes to adoring one of you mermaids?
He only neglects his work and runs up bills."

"I am sure you do not neglect your work.  You are always at the
Hospital, or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor's
quarrel; and then at home you always want to pore over your microscope
and phials.  Confess you like those things better than me."

"Haven't you ambition enough to wish that your husband should be
something better than a Middlemarch doctor?" said Lydgate, letting his
hands fall on to his wife's shoulders, and looking at her with
affectionate gravity.  "I shall make you learn my favorite bit from an
old poet--

        'Why should our pride make such a stir to be
         And be forgot?  What good is like to this,
         To do worthy the writing, and to write
         Worthy the reading and the worlds delight?'

What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,--and to write out
myself what I have done.  A man must work, to do that, my pet."

"Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish you
to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch.  You
cannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working.  But we
cannot live like hermits.  You are not discontented with me, Tertius?"

"No, dear, no.  I am too entirely contented."

"But what did Mrs. Casaubon want to say to you?"

"Merely to ask about her husband's health.  But I think she is going to
be splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give us two hundred
a-year."

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

completion: Dorothea decides to seek out Lydgate, and ask him if there has been a serious change in her husband's condition, or else why he has been so troubled since Lydgate's visit. She goes to his house, and finds Rosamond there; but Will is also there, which makes Dorothea panic, and she immediately leaves to find Lydgate at his hospital. Will fears that Dorothea will think badly of him because she has found him in the company of another woman, and not totally devoted to her; but she acted the way she did because she likes him, and knows that her husband doesn't approve of the friendship, and that it is some kind of betrayal as well. Rosamond begins to get ideas about perhaps attracting other admirers, in order to appease her vanity, and allay her fears about Lydgate's fondness for her growing weaker. It seems like she might try to win Mr. Ladislaw's affections, and seems a little jealous that he likes Dorothea rather than her. She also seems to suspect that maybe her husband has a soft spot for Dorothea, and that might have been part of the reason she was searching for Lydgate.


prompt:
Chapter: I would not creep along the coast but steer
    Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.

When Dorothea, walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New
Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs of
change in Mr. Casaubon's bodily condition beyond the mental sign of
anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was silent for a few
moments, wondering whether she had said or done anything to rouse this
new anxiety.  Lydgate, not willing to let slip an opportunity of
furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say--

"I don't know whether your or Mr.--Casaubon's attention has been drawn
to the needs of our New Hospital.  Circumstances have made it seem
rather egotistic in me to urge the subject; but that is not my fault:
it is because there is a fight being made against it by the other
medical men.  I think you are generally interested in such things, for
I remember that when I first had the pleasure of seeing you at Tipton
Grange before your marriage, you were asking me some questions about
the way in which the health of the poor was affected by their miserable
housing."

"Yes, indeed," said Dorothea, brightening.  "I shall be quite grateful
to you if you will tell me how I can help to make things a little
better.  Everything of that sort has slipped away from me since I have
been married.  I mean," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "that
the people in our village are tolerably comfortable, and my mind has
been too much taken up for me to inquire further.  But here--in such a
place as Middlemarch--there must be a great deal to be done."

"There is everything to be done," said Lydgate, with abrupt energy.
"And this Hospital is a capital piece of work, due entirely to Mr.
Bulstrode's exertions, and in a great degree to his money.  But one man
can't do everything in a scheme of this sort.  Of course he looked
forward to help.  And now there's a mean, petty feud set up against the
thing in the town, by certain persons who want to make it a failure."

"What can be their reasons?" said Dorothea, with naive surprise.

"Chiefly Mr. Bulstrode's unpopularity, to begin with.  Half the town
would almost take trouble for the sake of thwarting him.  In this
stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good to be done
unless it is done by their own set.  I had no connection with Bulstrode
before I came here.  I look at him quite impartially, and I see that he
has some notions--that he has set things on foot--which I can turn to
good public purpose.  If a fair number of the better educated men went
to work with the belief that their observations might contribute to the
reform of medical doctrine and practice, we should soon see a change
for the better.  That's my point of view.  I hold that by refusing to
work with Mr. Bulstrode I should be turning my back on an opportunity
of making my profession more generally serviceable."

"I quite agree with you," said Dorothea, at once fascinated by the
situation sketched in Lydgate's words.  "But what is there against Mr.
Bulstrode?  I know that my uncle is friendly with him."

"People don't like his religious tone," said Lydgate, breaking off
there.

"That is all the stronger reason for despising such an opposition,"
said Dorothea, looking at the affairs of Middlemarch by the light of
the great persecutions.

"To put the matter quite fairly, they have other objections to him:--he
is masterful and rather unsociable, and he is concerned with trade,
which has complaints of its own that I know nothing about.  But what
has that to do with the question whether it would not be a fine thing
to establish here a more valuable hospital than any they have in the
county?  The immediate motive to the opposition, however, is the fact
that Bulstrode has put the medical direction into my hands.  Of course
I am glad of that.  It gives me an opportunity of doing some good
work,--and I am aware that I have to justify his choice of me.  But the
consequence is, that the whole profession in Middlemarch have set
themselves tooth and nail against the Hospital, and not only refuse to
cooperate themselves, but try to blacken the whole affair and hinder
subscriptions."

"How very petty!" exclaimed Dorothea, indignantly.

"I suppose one must expect to fight one's way: there is hardly anything
to be done without it.  And the ignorance of people about here is
stupendous.  I don't lay claim to anything else than having used some
opportunities which have not come within everybody's reach; but there
is no stifling the offence of being young, and a new-comer, and
happening to know something more than the old inhabitants.  Still, if I
believe that I can set going a better method of treatment--if I
believe that I can pursue certain observations and inquiries which may
be a lasting benefit to medical practice, I should be a base truckler
if I allowed any consideration of personal comfort to hinder me.  And
the course is all the clearer from there being no salary in question to
put my persistence in an equivocal light."

"I am glad you have told me this, Mr. Lydgate," said Dorothea,
cordially.  "I feel sure I can help a little.  I have some money, and
don't know what to do with it--that is often an uncomfortable thought
to me.  I am sure I can spare two hundred a-year for a grand purpose
like this.  How happy you must be, to know things that you feel sure
will do great good!  I wish I could awake with that knowledge every
morning.  There seems to be so much trouble taken that one can hardly
see the good of!"

There was a melancholy cadence in Dorothea's voice as she spoke these
last words.  But she presently added, more cheerfully, "Pray come to
Lowick and tell us more of this.  I will mention the subject to Mr.
Casaubon.  I must hasten home now."

She did mention it that evening, and said that she should like to
subscribe two hundred a-year--she had seven hundred a-year as the
equivalent of her own fortune, settled on her at her marriage.  Mr.
Casaubon made no objection beyond a passing remark that the sum might
be disproportionate in relation to other good objects, but when
Dorothea in her ignorance resisted that suggestion, he acquiesced.  He
did not care himself about spending money, and was not reluctant to
give it.  If he ever felt keenly any question of money it was through
the medium of another passion than the love of material property.

Dorothea told him that she had seen Lydgate, and recited the gist of
her conversation with him about the Hospital.  Mr. Casaubon did not
question her further, but he felt sure that she had wished to know what
had passed between Lydgate and himself "She knows that I know," said
the ever-restless voice within; but that increase of tacit knowledge
only thrust further off any confidence between them.  He distrusted her
affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

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

completion: Dorothea finally talks to Lydgate, and Lydgate tells her that Casaubon now knows about his condition, and he is probably upset by it. Lydgate turns her attention to the new hospital; Bulstrode has been one of the few supporting it, and so many are against the hospital because they do not like Bulstrode. Dorothea says that she would like to do something for such a good cause, and pledges money from her yearly allowance; she is happier that she is able to make a significant contribution, but still her husband's illness and behavior bother her.


prompt:
Chapter: "Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
         Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira:
         Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,
         E cui saluta fa tremar lo core.

     Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore,
         E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
         Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:
         Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore.

     Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile
         Nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente;
         Ond'e beato chi prima la vide.
     Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride,
         Non si puo dicer, ne tener a mente,
         Si e nuovo miracolo gentile."
                        --DANTE: la Vita Nuova.

By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were
scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr. Raffles had been a guest
worthy of finest incense, Dorothea had again taken up her abode at
Lowick Manor.  After three months Freshitt had become rather
oppressive: to sit like a model for Saint Catherine looking rapturously
at Celia's baby would not do for many hours in the day, and to remain
in that momentous babe's presence with persistent disregard was a
course that could not have been tolerated in a childless sister.
Dorothea would have been capable of carrying baby joyfully for a mile
if there had been need, and of loving it the more tenderly for that
labor; but to an aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as
Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but to admire, his behavior is
apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of watching him exhaustible.
This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's
childless widowhood fell in quite prettily with the birth of little
Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke).

"Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having anything of her
own--children or anything!" said Celia to her husband.  "And if she
had had a baby, it never could have been such a dear as Arthur.  Could
it, James?

"Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of some
indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private opinion
as to the perfections of his first-born.

"No! just imagine!  Really it was a mercy," said Celia; "and I think it
is very nice for Dodo to be a widow.  She can be just as fond of our
baby as if it were her own, and she can have as many notions of her own
as she likes."

"It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir James.

"But what should we have been then?  We must have been something else,"
said Celia, objecting to so laborious a flight of imagination.  "I like
her better as she is."

Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making arrangements for her
final departure to Lowick, Celia raised her eyebrows with
disappointment, and in her quiet unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of
sarcasm.

"What will you do at Lowick, Dodo?  You say yourself there is nothing
to be done there: everybody is so clean and well off, it makes you
quite melancholy.  And here you have been so happy going all about
Tipton with Mr. Garth into the worst backyards.  And now uncle is
abroad, you and Mr. Garth can have it all your own way; and I am sure
James does everything you tell him."

"I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows all the
better," said Dorothea.

"But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and that is quite the
best part of the day."  She was almost pouting: it did seem to her very
hard in Dodo to go away from the baby when she might stay.

"Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose," said Dorothea;
"but I want to be alone now, and in my own home.  I wish to know the
Farebrothers better, and to talk to Mr. Farebrother about what there is
to be done in Middlemarch."

Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all converted into
resolute submission.  She had a great yearning to be at Lowick, and was
simply determined to go, not feeling bound to tell all her reasons.
But every one around her disapproved.  Sir James was much pained, and
offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham for a few months
with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle: at that period a man
could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected.

The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to her daughter in
town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo should be written to, and
invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon: it was not
credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think of living alone in
the house at Lowick.  Mrs. Vigo had been reader and secretary to royal
personages, and in point of knowledge and sentiments even Dorothea
could have nothing to object to her.

Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go mad in that
house alone, my dear.  You will see visions.  We have all got to exert
ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as
other people call them by.  To be sure, for younger sons and women who
have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad: they are taken care
of then.  But you must not run into that.  I dare say you are a little
bored here with our good dowager; but think what a bore you might
become yourself to your fellow-creatures if you were always playing
tragedy queen and taking things sublimely.  Sitting alone in that
library at Lowick you may fancy yourself ruling the weather; you must
get a few people round you who wouldn't believe you if you told them.
That is a good lowering medicine."

"I never called everything by the same name that all the people about
me did," said Dorothea, stoutly.

"But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear," said Mrs.
Cadwallader, "and that is a proof of sanity."

Dorothea was aware of the sting, but it did not hurt her.  "No," she
said, "I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken
about many things.  Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the
greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion."

Mrs. Cadwallader said no more on that point to Dorothea, but to her
husband she remarked, "It will be well for her to marry again as soon
as it is proper, if one could get her among the right people.  Of
course the Chettams would not wish it.  But I see clearly a husband is
the best thing to keep her in order.  If we were not so poor I would
invite Lord Triton.  He will be marquis some day, and there is no
denying that she would make a good marchioness: she looks handsomer
than ever in her mourning."

"My dear Elinor, do let the poor woman alone.  Such contrivances are of
no use," said the easy Rector.

"No use?  How are matches made, except by bringing men and women
together?  And it is a shame that her uncle should have run away and
shut up the Grange just now.  There ought to be plenty of eligible
matches invited to Freshitt and the Grange.  Lord Triton is precisely
the man: full of plans for making the people happy in a soft-headed
sort of way.  That would just suit Mrs. Casaubon."

"Let Mrs. Casaubon choose for herself, Elinor."

"That is the nonsense you wise men talk!  How can she choose if she has
no variety to choose from?  A woman's choice usually means taking the
only man she can get.  Mark my words, Humphrey.  If her friends don't
exert themselves, there will be a worse business than the Casaubon
business yet."

"For heaven's sake don't touch on that topic, Elinor! It is a very sore
point with Sir James. He would be deeply offended if you entered on it
to him unnecessarily."

"I have never entered on it," said Mrs Cadwallader, opening her hands.
"Celia told me all about the will at the beginning, without any asking
of mine."

"Yes, yes; but they want the thing hushed up, and I understand that the
young fellow is going out of the neighborhood."

Mrs. Cadwallader said nothing, but gave her husband three significant
nods, with a very sarcastic expression in her dark eyes.

Dorothea quietly persisted in spite of remonstrance and persuasion.  So
by the end of June the shutters were all opened at Lowick Manor, and
the morning gazed calmly into the library, shining on the rows of
note-books as it shines on the weary waste planted with huge stones,
the mute memorial of a forgotten faith; and the evening laden with
roses entered silently into the blue-green boudoir where Dorothea chose
oftenest to sit.  At first she walked into every room, questioning the
eighteen months of her married life, and carrying on her thoughts as if
they were a speech to be heard by her husband.  Then, she lingered in
the library and could not be at rest till she had carefully ranged all
the note-books as she imagined that he would wish to see them, in
orderly sequence.  The pity which had been the restraining compelling
motive in her life with him still clung about his image, even while she
remonstrated with him in indignant thought and told him that he was
unjust.  One little act of hers may perhaps be smiled at as
superstitious.  The Synoptical Tabulation for the use of Mrs. Casaubon,
she carefully enclosed and sealed, writing within the envelope, "I
could not use it.  Do you not see now that I could not submit my soul
to yours, by working hopelessly at what I have no belief in--Dorothea?"
Then she deposited the paper in her own desk.

That silent colloquy was perhaps only the more earnest because
underneath and through it all there was always the deep longing which
had really determined her to come to Lowick.  The longing was to see
Will Ladislaw.  She did not know any good that could come of their
meeting: she was helpless; her hands had been tied from making up to
him for any unfairness in his lot.  But her soul thirsted to see him.
How could it be otherwise?  If a princess in the days of enchantment
had seen a four-footed creature from among those which live in herds
come to her once and again with a human gaze which rested upon her with
choice and beseeching, what would she think of in her journeying, what
would she look for when the herds passed her?  Surely for the gaze
which had found her, and which she would know again.  Life would be no
better than candle-light tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits
were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy.
It was true that Dorothea wanted to know the Farebrothers better, and
especially to talk to the new rector, but also true that remembering
what Lydgate had told her about Will Ladislaw and little Miss Noble,
she counted on Will's coming to Lowick to see the Farebrother family.
The very first Sunday, _before_ she entered the church, she saw him as
she had seen him the last time she was there, alone in the clergyman's
pew; but _when_ she entered his figure was gone.

In the week-days when she went to see the ladies at the Rectory, she
listened in vain for some word that they might let fall about Will; but
it seemed to her that Mrs. Farebrother talked of every one else in the
neighborhood and out of it.

"Probably some of Mr. Farebrother's Middlemarch hearers may follow him
to Lowick sometimes.  Do you not think so?" said Dorothea, rather
despising herself for having a secret motive in asking the question.

"If they are wise they will, Mrs. Casaubon," said the old lady.  "I see
that you set a right value on my son's preaching.  His grandfather on
my side was an excellent clergyman, but his father was in the law:--most
exemplary and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our never
being rich.  They say Fortune is a woman and capricious.  But sometimes
she is a good woman and gives to those who merit, which has been the
case with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who have given a living to my son."

Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a dignified satisfaction
in her neat little effort at oratory, but this was not what Dorothea
wanted to hear.  Poor thing! she did not even know whether Will
Ladislaw was still at Middlemarch, and there was no one whom she dared
to ask, unless it were Lydgate.  But just now she could not see Lydgate
without sending for him or going to seek him.  Perhaps Will Ladislaw,
having heard of that strange ban against him left by Mr. Casaubon, had
felt it better that he and she should not meet again, and perhaps she
was wrong to wish for a meeting that others might find many good
reasons against.  Still "I do wish it" came at the end of those wise
reflections as naturally as a sob after holding the breath.  And the
meeting did happen, but in a formal way quite unexpected by her.

One morning, about eleven, Dorothea was seated in her boudoir with a
map of the land attached to the manor and other papers before her,
which were to help her in making an exact statement for herself of her
income and affairs.  She had not yet applied herself to her work, but
was seated with her hands folded on her lap, looking out along the
avenue of limes to the distant fields.  Every leaf was at rest in the
sunshine, the familiar scene was changeless, and seemed to represent
the prospect of her life, full of motiveless ease--motiveless, if her
own energy could not seek out reasons for ardent action.  The widow's
cap of those times made an oval frame for the face, and had a crown
standing up; the dress was an experiment in the utmost laying on of
crape; but this heavy solemnity of clothing made her face look all the
younger, with its recovered bloom, and the sweet, inquiring candor of
her eyes.

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

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

The drawing-room was the most neutral room in the house to her--the
one least associated with the trials of her married life: the damask
matched the wood-work, which was all white and gold; there were two
tall mirrors and tables with nothing on them--in brief, it was a room
where you had no reason for sitting in one place rather than in
another.  It was below the boudoir, and had also a bow-window looking
out on the avenue.  But when Pratt showed Will Ladislaw into it the
window was open; and a winged visitor, buzzing in and out now and then
without minding the furniture, made the room look less formal and
uninhabited.

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

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

"Very sorry to hear it, sir," said Pratt, retiring.  Of course, as a
servant who was to be told nothing, he knew the fact of which Ladislaw
was still ignorant, and had drawn his inferences; indeed, had not
differed from his betrothed Tantripp when she said, "Your master was as
jealous as a fiend--and no reason.  Madam would look higher than Mr.
Ladislaw, else I don't know her.  Mrs. Cadwallader's maid says there's
a lord coming who is to marry her when the mourning's over."

There were not many moments for Will to walk about with his hat in his
hand before Dorothea entered.  The meeting was very different from that
first meeting in Rome when Will had been embarrassed and Dorothea calm.
This time he felt miserable but determined, while she was in a state of
agitation which could not be hidden.  Just outside the door she had
felt that this longed-for meeting was after all too difficult, and when
she saw Will advancing towards her, the deep blush which was rare in
her came with painful suddenness.  Neither of them knew how it was, but
neither of them spoke.  She gave her hand for a moment, and then they
went to sit down near the window, she on one settee and he on another
opposite.  Will was peculiarly uneasy: it seemed to him not like
Dorothea that the mere fact of her being a widow should cause such a
change in her manner of receiving him; and he knew of no other
condition which could have affected their previous relation to each
other--except that, as his imagination at once told him, her friends
might have been poisoning her mind with their suspicions of him.

"I hope I have not presumed too much in calling," said Will; "I could
not bear to leave the neighborhood and begin a new life without seeing
you to say good-by."

"Presumed?  Surely not.  I should have thought it unkind if you had not
wished to see me," said Dorothea, her habit of speaking with perfect
genuineness asserting itself through all her uncertainty and agitation.
"Are you going away immediately?"

"Very soon, I think.  I intend to go to town and eat my dinners as a
barrister, since, they say, that is the preparation for all public
business.  There will be a great deal of political work to be done
by-and-by, and I mean to try and do some of it.  Other men have managed
to win an honorable position for themselves without family or money."

"And that will make it all the more honorable," said Dorothea,
ardently.  "Besides, you have so many talents.  I have heard from my
uncle how well you speak in public, so that every one is sorry when you
leave off, and how clearly you can explain things.  And you care that
justice should be done to every one.  I am so glad.  When we were in
Rome, I thought you only cared for poetry and art, and the things that
adorn life for us who are well off.  But now I know you think about the
rest of the world."

While she was speaking Dorothea had lost her personal embarrassment,
and had become like her former self.  She looked at Will with a direct
glance, full of delighted confidence.

"You approve of my going away for years, then, and never coming here
again till I have made myself of some mark in the world?" said Will,
trying hard to reconcile the utmost pride with the utmost effort to get
an expression of strong feeling from Dorothea.

She was not aware how long it was before she answered.  She had turned
her head and was looking out of the window on the rose-bushes, which
seemed to have in them the summers of all the years when Will would be
away.  This was not judicious behavior.  But Dorothea never thought of
studying her manners: she thought only of bowing to a sad necessity
which divided her from Will.  Those first words of his about his
intentions had seemed to make everything clear to her: he knew, she
supposed, all about Mr. Casaubon's final conduct in relation to him,
and it had come to him with the same sort of shock as to herself.  He
had never felt more than friendship for her--had never had anything in
his mind to justify what she felt to be her husband's outrage on the
feelings of both: and that friendship he still felt.  Something which
may be called an inward silent sob had gone on in Dorothea before she
said with a pure voice, just trembling in the last words as if only
from its liquid flexibility--

"Yes, it must be right for you to do as you say.  I shall be very happy
when I hear that you have made your value felt.  But you must have
patience.  It will perhaps be a long while."

Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself from falling
down at her feet, when the "long while" came forth with its gentle
tremor.  He used to say that the horrible hue and surface of her crape
dress was most likely the sufficient controlling force.  He sat still,
however, and only said--

"I shall never hear from you.  And you will forget all about me."

"No," said Dorothea, "I shall never forget you.  I have never forgotten
any one whom I once knew.  My life has never been crowded, and seems
not likely to be so.  And I have a great deal of space for memory at
Lowick, haven't I?"  She smiled.

"Good God!"  Will burst out passionately, rising, with his hat still in
his hand, and walking away to a marble table, where he suddenly turned
and leaned his back against it.  The blood had mounted to his face and
neck, and he looked almost angry.  It had seemed to him as if they were
like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other's presence,
while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning.  But
there was no help for it.  It should never be true of him that in this
meeting to which he had come with bitter resolution he had ended by a
confession which might be interpreted into asking for her fortune.
Moreover, it was actually true that he was fearful of the effect which
such confessions might have on Dorothea herself.

She looked at him from that distance in some trouble, imagining that
there might have been an offence in her words.  But all the while there
was a current of thought in her about his probable want of money, and
the impossibility of her helping him.  If her uncle had been at home,
something might have been done through him!  It was this preoccupation
with the hardship of Will's wanting money, while she had what ought to
have been his share, which led her to say, seeing that he remained
silent and looked away from her--

"I wonder whether you would like to have that miniature which hangs
up-stairs--I mean that beautiful miniature of your grandmother.  I
think it is not right for me to keep it, if you would wish to have it.
It is wonderfully like you."

"You are very good," said Will, irritably.  "No; I don't mind about it.
It is not very consoling to have one's own likeness.  It would be more
consoling if others wanted to have it."

"I thought you would like to cherish her memory--I thought--" Dorothea
broke off an instant, her imagination suddenly warning her away from
Aunt Julia's history--"you would surely like to have the miniature as a
family memorial."

"Why should I have that, when I have nothing else!  A man with only a
portmanteau for his stowage must keep his memorials in his head."

Will spoke at random: he was merely venting his petulance; it was a
little too exasperating to have his grandmother's portrait offered him
at that moment.  But to Dorothea's feeling his words had a peculiar
sting.  She rose and said with a touch of indignation as well as
hauteur--

"You are much the happier of us two, Mr. Ladislaw, to have nothing."

Will was startled.  Whatever the words might be, the tone seemed like a
dismissal; and quitting his leaning posture, he walked a little way
towards her.  Their eyes met, but with a strange questioning gravity.
Something was keeping their minds aloof, and each was left to
conjecture what was in the other.  Will had really never thought of
himself as having a claim of inheritance on the property which was held
by Dorothea, and would have required a narrative to make him understand
her present feeling.

"I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now," he said.  "But
poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we most
care for."

The words cut Dorothea to the heart, and made her relent.  She answered
in a tone of sad fellowship.

"Sorrow comes in so many ways.  Two years ago I had no notion of
that--I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our
hands, and makes us silent when we long to speak.  I used to despise
women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better
things.  I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given
it up," she ended, smiling playfully.

"I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it,"
said Will.  He was standing two yards from her with his mind full of
contradictory desires and resolves--desiring some unmistakable proof
that she loved him, and yet dreading the position into which such a
proof might bring him.  "The thing one most longs for may be surrounded
with conditions that would be intolerable."

At this moment Pratt entered and said, "Sir James Chettam is in the
library, madam."

"Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea, immediately.  It was as
if the same electric shock had passed through her and Will.  Each of
them felt proudly resistant, and neither looked at the other, while
they awaited Sir James's entrance.

After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly as possible to
Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly, and then going towards
Dorothea, said--

"I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a long while."

Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by cordially.  The sense
that Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him,
roused her resolution and dignity: there was no touch of confusion in
her manner.  And when Will had left the room, she looked with such calm
self-possession at Sir James, saying, "How is Celia?" that he was
obliged to behave as if nothing had annoyed him.  And what would be the
use of behaving otherwise?  Indeed, Sir James shrank with so much
dislike from the association even in thought of Dorothea with Ladislaw
as her possible lover, that he would himself have wished to avoid an
outward show of displeasure which would have recognized the
disagreeable possibility.  If any one had asked him why he shrank in
that way, I am not sure that he would at first have said anything
fuller or more precise than "_That_ Ladislaw!"--though on reflection
he might have urged that Mr. Casaubon's codicil, barring Dorothea's
marriage with Will, except under a penalty, was enough to cast
unfitness over any relation at all between them.  His aversion was all
the stronger because he felt himself unable to interfere.

But Sir James was a power in a way unguessed by himself.  Entering at
that moment, he was an incorporation of the strongest reasons through
which Will's pride became a repellent force, keeping him asunder from
Dorothea.

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

completion: Dorothea is tired of staying at her sister's, having nothing to do but stare at Celia's baby, whom Celia worships, but Dorothea couldn't be more indifferent to. She longs to get back to Lowick and set things in order; her sister and Sir James do not believe she should go, but she is determined to, because she can stand Celia's no longer. Others also wish that Dorothea go to live with someone, so she should not be lonely, but she refuses. She also refuses to finish Casaubon's work, since her interest in it has been obliterated by his death, and before that his behavior toward her. Will finally does visit her, to see if she does have some affection to encourage him with. Their meeting is heated, however, with both of them being frustrated by not being able to admit their affection, and then their pride clashing on the subject of their division from each other. Will leaves, with Dorothea trying to show little emotion, especially because Sir James is there, and disapproves of the whole relationship.


prompt:
Chapter: Hath she her faults?  I would you had them too.
    They are the fruity must of soundest wine;
    Or say, they are regenerating fire
    Such as hath turned the dense black element
    Into a crystal pathway for the sun.

If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that
our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think
its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind.  Each
crisis seems final, simply because it is new.  We are told that the
oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the
earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that
there are plenty more to come.

To Dorothea, still in that time of youth when the eyes with their long
full lashes look out after their rain of tears unsoiled and unwearied
as a freshly opened passion-flower, that morning's parting with Will
Ladislaw seemed to be the close of their personal relations.  He was
going away into the distance of unknown years, and if ever he came back
he would be another man.  The actual state of his mind--his proud
resolve to give the lie beforehand to any suspicion that he would play
the needy adventurer seeking a rich woman--lay quite out of her
imagination, and she had interpreted all his behavior easily enough by
her supposition that Mr. Casaubon's codicil seemed to him, as it did to
her, a gross and cruel interdict on any active friendship between them.
Their young delight in speaking to each other, and saying what no one
else would care to hear, was forever ended, and become a treasure of
the past.  For this very reason she dwelt on it without inward check.
That unique happiness too was dead, and in its shadowed silent chamber
she might vent the passionate grief which she herself wondered at.  For
the first time she took down the miniature from the wall and kept it
before her, liking to blend the woman who had been too hardly judged
with the grandson whom her own heart and judgment defended.  Can any
one who has rejoiced in woman's tenderness think it a reproach to her
that she took the little oval picture in her palm and made a bed for it
there, and leaned her cheek upon it, as if that would soothe the
creatures who had suffered unjust condemnation?  She did not know then
that it was Love who had come to her briefly, as in a dream before
awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings--that it was Love to
whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the
blameless rigor of irresistible day.  She only felt that there was
something irrevocably amiss and lost in her lot, and her thoughts about
the future were the more readily shapen into resolve.  Ardent souls,
ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves to
the fulfilment of their own visions.

One day that she went to Freshitt to fulfil her promise of staying all
night and seeing baby washed, Mrs. Cadwallader came to dine, the Rector
being gone on a fishing excursion.  It was a warm evening, and even in
the delightful drawing-room, where the fine old turf sloped from the
open window towards a lilied pool and well-planted mounds, the heat was
enough to make Celia in her white muslin and light curls reflect with
pity on what Dodo must feel in her black dress and close cap.  But this
was not until some episodes with baby were over, and had left her mind
at leisure.  She had seated herself and taken up a fan for some time
before she said, in her quiet guttural--

"Dear Dodo, do throw off that cap.  I am sure your dress must make you
feel ill."

"I am so used to the cap--it has become a sort of shell," said
Dorothea, smiling.  "I feel rather bare and exposed when it is off."

"I must see you without it; it makes us all warm," said Celia, throwing
down her fan, and going to Dorothea.  It was a pretty picture to see
this little lady in white muslin unfastening the widow's cap from her
more majestic sister, and tossing it on to a chair.  Just as the coils
and braids of dark-brown hair had been set free, Sir James entered the
room.  He looked at the released head, and said, "Ah!" in a tone of
satisfaction.

"It was I who did it, James," said Celia.  "Dodo need not make such a
slavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any more among her
friends."

"My dear Celia," said Lady Chettam, "a widow must wear her mourning at
least a year."

"Not if she marries again before the end of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader,
who had some pleasure in startling her good friend the Dowager.  Sir
James was annoyed, and leaned forward to play with Celia's Maltese dog.

"That is very rare, I hope," said Lady Chettam, in a tone intended to
guard against such events.  "No friend of ours ever committed herself
in that way except Mrs. Beevor, and it was very painful to Lord
Grinsell when she did so.  Her first husband was objectionable, which
made it the greater wonder.  And severely she was punished for it.
They said Captain Beevor dragged her about by the hair, and held up
loaded pistols at her."

"Oh, if she took the wrong man!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, who was in a
decidedly wicked mood.  "Marriage is always bad then, first or second.
Priority is a poor recommendation in a husband if he has got no other.
I would rather have a good second husband than an indifferent first."

"My dear, your clever tongue runs away with you," said Lady Chettam.
"I am sure you would be the last woman to marry again prematurely, if
our dear Rector were taken away."

"Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy.  It is lawful to
marry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos instead of
Christians.  Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must take
the consequences, and one who does it twice over deserves her fate.
But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery--the sooner the
better."

"I think the subject of our conversation is very ill-chosen," said Sir
James, with a look of disgust.  "Suppose we change it."

"Not on my account, Sir James," said Dorothea, determined not to lose
the opportunity of freeing herself from certain oblique references to
excellent matches.  "If you are speaking on my behalf, I can assure you
that no question can be more indifferent and impersonal to me than
second marriage.  It is no more to me than if you talked of women going
fox-hunting: whether it is admirable in them or not, I shall not follow
them.  Pray let Mrs. Cadwallader amuse herself on that subject as much
as on any other."

"My dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Lady Chettam, in her stateliest way, "you
do not, I hope, think there was any allusion to you in my mentioning
Mrs. Beevor.  It was only an instance that occurred to me.  She was
step-daughter to Lord Grinsell: he married Mrs. Teveroy for his second
wife.  There could be no possible allusion to you."

"Oh no," said Celia.  "Nobody chose the subject; it all came out of
Dodo's cap.  Mrs. Cadwallader only said what was quite true.  A woman
could not be married in a widow's cap, James."

"Hush, my dear!" said Mrs. Cadwallader.  "I will not offend again.  I
will not even refer to Dido or Zenobia.  Only what are we to talk
about?  I, for my part, object to the discussion of Human Nature,
because that is the nature of rectors' wives."

Later in the evening, after Mrs. Cadwallader was gone, Celia said
privately to Dorothea, "Really, Dodo, taking your cap off made you like
yourself again in more ways than one.  You spoke up just as you used to
do, when anything was said to displease you.  But I could hardly make
out whether it was James that you thought wrong, or Mrs. Cadwallader."

"Neither," said Dorothea.  "James spoke out of delicacy to me, but he
was mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said.  I
should only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece of
blood and beauty that she or anybody else recommended."

"But you know, Dodo, if you ever did marry, it would be all the better
to have blood and beauty," said Celia, reflecting that Mr. Casaubon had
not been richly endowed with those gifts, and that it would be well to
caution Dorothea in time.

"Don't be anxious, Kitty; I have quite other thoughts about my life.  I
shall never marry again," said Dorothea, touching her sister's chin,
and looking at her with indulgent affection.  Celia was nursing her
baby, and Dorothea had come to say good-night to her.

"Really--quite?" said Celia.  "Not anybody at all--if he were very
wonderful indeed?"

Dorothea shook her head slowly.  "Not anybody at all.  I have
delightful plans.  I should like to take a great deal of land, and
drain it, and make a little colony, where everybody should work, and
all the work should be done well.  I should know every one of the
people and be their friend.  I am going to have great consultations
with Mr. Garth: he can tell me almost everything I want to know."

"Then you _will_ be happy, if you have a plan, Dodo?" said Celia.
"Perhaps little Arthur will like plans when he grows up, and then he
can help you."

Sir James was informed that same night that Dorothea was really quite
set against marrying anybody at all, and was going to take to "all
sorts of plans," just like what she used to have.  Sir James made no
remark.  To his secret feeling there was something repulsive in a
woman's second marriage, and no match would prevent him from feeling it
a sort of desecration for Dorothea.  He was aware that the world would
regard such a sentiment as preposterous, especially in relation to a
woman of one-and-twenty; the practice of "the world" being to treat of
a young widow's second marriage as certain and probably near, and to
smile with meaning if the widow acts accordingly.  But if Dorothea did
choose to espouse her solitude, he felt that the resolution would well
become her.

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

completion: Dorothea seems more grieved at Will's departure than she was at her husband's deathand rightly so, for she loved Will more than she ever loved her husband. She goes to Celia, where the company brings up the subject of marriage; it is openly suggested that Dorothea marry again, though that is the last thing Dorothea wishes. Dorothea decides to turn her attention toward public projects again, and will ask Caleb Garth's help in achieving her goals.