prompt:
Chapter: "He had more tow on his distaffe
     Than Gerveis knew."
                           --CHAUCER.

The ride to Stone Court, which Fred and Rosamond took the next morning,
lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and
pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to
spread out coral fruit for the birds.  Little details gave each field a
particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from
childhood: the pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees
leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in
mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope
of the old marl-pit making a red background for the burdock; the
huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of
approach; the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering
wood; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and
valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel
far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful.
These are the things that make the gamut of joy in landscape to
midland-bred souls--the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned
by heart standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely.

But the road, even the byroad, was excellent; for Lowick, as we have
seen, was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants; and it was into
Lowick parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles'
riding.  Another mile would bring them to Stone Court, and at the end
of the first half, the house was already visible, looking as if it had
been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected
budding of farm-buildings on its left flank, which had hindered it from
becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman
farmer.  It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for
the cluster of pinnacled corn-ricks which balanced the fine row of
walnuts on the right.

Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on
the circular drive before the front door.

"Dear me," said Rosamond, "I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations
are there."

"They are, though.  That is Mrs. Waule's gig--the last yellow gig left,
I should think.  When I see Mrs. Waule in it, I understand how yellow
can have been worn for mourning.  That gig seems to me more funereal
than a hearse.  But then Mrs. Waule always has black crape on.  How
does she manage it, Rosy?  Her friends can't always be dying."

"I don't know at all.  And she is not in the least evangelical," said
Rosamond, reflectively, as if that religious point of view would have
fully accounted for perpetual crape.  "And, not poor," she added, after
a moment's pause.

"No, by George!  They are as rich as Jews, those Waules and
Featherstones; I mean, for people like them, who don't want to spend
anything.  And yet they hang about my uncle like vultures, and are
afraid of a farthing going away from their side of the family.  But I
believe he hates them all."

The Mrs. Waule who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these
distant connections, had happened to say this very morning (not at all
with a defiant air, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice
heard through cotton wool) that she did not wish "to enjoy their good
opinion." She was seated, as she observed, on her own brother's hearth,
and had been Jane Featherstone five-and-twenty years before she had
been Jane Waule, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's
name had been made free with by those who had no right to it.

"What are you driving at there?" said Mr. Featherstone, holding his
stick between his knees and settling his wig, while he gave her a
momentary sharp glance, which seemed to react on him like a draught of
cold air and set him coughing.

Mrs. Waule had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary
Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he had begun to rub the
gold knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire.  It was a bright
fire, but it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of
Mrs. Waule's face, which was as neutral as her voice; having mere
chinks for eyes, and lips that hardly moved in speaking.

"The doctors can't master that cough, brother.  It's just like what I
have; for I'm your own sister, constitution and everything.  But, as I
was saying, it's a pity Mrs. Vincy's family can't be better conducted."

"Tchah! you said nothing o' the sort.  You said somebody had made free
with my name."

"And no more than can be proved, if what everybody says is true.  My
brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down in Middlemarch how
unsteady young Vincy is, and has been forever gambling at billiards
since home he came."

"Nonsense!  What's a game at billiards?  It's a good gentlemanly game;
and young Vincy is not a clodhopper.  If your son John took to
billiards, now, he'd make a fool of himself."

"Your nephew John never took to billiards or any other game, brother,
and is far from losing hundreds of pounds, which, if what everybody
says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Vincy the
father's pocket.  For they say he's been losing money for years, though
nobody would think so, to see him go coursing and keeping open house as
they do.  And I've heard say Mr. Bulstrode condemns Mrs. Vincy beyond
anything for her flightiness, and spoiling her children so."

"What's Bulstrode to me?  I don't bank with him."

"Well, Mrs. Bulstrode is Mr. Vincy's own sister, and they do say that
Mr. Vincy mostly trades on the Bank money; and you may see yourself,
brother, when a woman past forty has pink strings always flying, and
that light way of laughing at everything, it's very unbecoming.  But
indulging your children is one thing, and finding money to pay their
debts is another.  And it's openly said that young Vincy has raised
money on his expectations.  I don't say what expectations.  Miss Garth
hears me, and is welcome to tell again.  I know young people hang
together."

"No, thank you, Mrs. Waule," said Mary Garth.  "I dislike hearing
scandal too much to wish to repeat it."

Mr. Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick and made a brief
convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an
old whist-player's chuckle over a bad hand.  Still looking at the fire,
he said--

"And who pretends to say Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations?  Such a
fine, spirited fellow is like enough to have 'em."

There was a slight pause before Mrs. Waule replied, and when she did
so, her voice seemed to be slightly moistened with tears, though her
face was still dry.

"Whether or no, brother, it is naturally painful to me and my brother
Solomon to hear your name made free with, and your complaint being such
as may carry you off sudden, and people who are no more Featherstones
than the Merry-Andrew at the fair, openly reckoning on your property
coming to _them_.  And me your own sister, and Solomon your own
brother!  And if that's to be it, what has it pleased the Almighty to
make families for?" Here Mrs. Waule's tears fell, but with moderation.

"Come, out with it, Jane!" said Mr. Featherstone, looking at her.  "You
mean to say, Fred Vincy has been getting somebody to advance him money
on what he says he knows about my will, eh?"

"I never said so, brother" (Mrs. Waule's voice had again become dry and
unshaken). "It was told me by my brother Solomon last night when he
called coming from market to give me advice about the old wheat, me
being a widow, and my son John only three-and-twenty, though steady
beyond anything.  And he had it from most undeniable authority, and not
one, but many."

"Stuff and nonsense!  I don't believe a word of it.  It's all a got-up
story.  Go to the window, missy; I thought I heard a horse.  See if the
doctor's coming."

"Not got up by me, brother, nor yet by Solomon, who, whatever else he
may be--and I don't deny he has oddities--has made his will and parted
his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for
my part, I think there are times when some should be considered more
than others.  But Solomon makes it no secret what he means to do."

"The more fool he!" said Mr. Featherstone, with some difficulty;
breaking into a severe fit of coughing that required Mary Garth to
stand near him, so that she did not find out whose horses they were
which presently paused stamping on the gravel before the door.

Before Mr. Featherstone's cough was quiet, Rosamond entered, bearing up
her riding-habit with much grace.  She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs.
Waule, who said stiffly, "How do you do, miss?" smiled and nodded
silently to Mary, and remained standing till the coughing should cease,
and allow her uncle to notice her.

"Heyday, miss!" he said at last, "you have a fine color.  Where's Fred?"

"Seeing about the horses.  He will be in presently."

"Sit down, sit down.  Mrs. Waule, you'd better go."

Even those neighbors who had called Peter Featherstone an old fox, had
never accused him of being insincerely polite, and his sister was quite
used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense
of blood-relationship. Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that
entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in
the Almighty's intentions about families.  She rose slowly without any
sign of resentment, and said in her usual muffled monotone, "Brother, I
hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you.  Solomon says
there's great talk of his cleverness.  I'm sure it's my wish you should
be spared.  And there's none more ready to nurse you than your own
sister and your own nieces, if you'd only say the word.  There's
Rebecca, and Joanna, and Elizabeth, you know."

"Ay, ay, I remember--you'll see I've remembered 'em all--all dark and
ugly.  They'd need have some money, eh?  There never was any beauty in
the women of our family; but the Featherstones have always had some
money, and the Waules too.  Waule had money too.  A warm man was Waule.
Ay, ay; money's a good egg; and if you 've got money to leave behind
you, lay it in a warm nest.  Good-by, Mrs. Waule." Here Mr.
Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he wanted to deafen
himself, and his sister went away ruminating on this oracular speech of
his.  Notwithstanding her jealousy of the Vincys and of Mary Garth,
there remained as the nethermost sediment in her mental shallows a
persuasion that her brother Peter Featherstone could never leave his
chief property away from his blood-relations:--else, why had the
Almighty carried off his two wives both childless, after he had gained
so much by manganese and things, turning up when nobody expected
it?--and why was there a Lowick parish church, and the Waules and
Powderells all sitting in the same pew for generations, and the
Featherstone pew next to them, if, the Sunday after her brother Peter's
death, everybody was to know that the property was gone out of the
family?  The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos; and so
preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable.  But we are
frightened at much that is not strictly conceivable.

When Fred came in the old man eyed him with a peculiar twinkle, which
the younger had often had reason to interpret as pride in the
satisfactory details of his appearance.

"You two misses go away," said Mr. Featherstone.  "I want to speak to
Fred."

"Come into my room, Rosamond, you will not mind the cold for a little
while," said Mary.  The two girls had not only known each other in
childhood, but had been at the same provincial school together (Mary as
an articled pupil), so that they had many memories in common, and liked
very well to talk in private.  Indeed, this tete-a-tete was one of
Rosamond's objects in coming to Stone Court.

Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been
closed.  He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle and with
one of his habitual grimaces, alternately screwing and widening his
mouth; and when he spoke, it was in a low tone, which might be taken
for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the
tone of an offended senior.  He was not a man to feel any strong moral
indignation even on account of trespasses against himself.  It was
natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then,
he was a little too cunning for them.

"So, sir, you've been paying ten per cent for money which you've
promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I'm dead and gone, eh?
You put my life at a twelvemonth, say.  But I can alter my will yet."

Fred blushed.  He had not borrowed money in that way, for excellent
reasons.  But he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence
(perhaps with more than he exactly remembered) about his prospect of
getting Featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts.

"I don't know what you refer to, sir.  I have certainly never borrowed
any money on such an insecurity.  Please do explain."

"No, sir, it's you must explain.  I can alter my will yet, let me tell
you.  I'm of sound mind--can reckon compound interest in my head, and
remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago.  What
the deuce?  I'm under eighty.  I say, you must contradict this story."

"I have contradicted it, sir," Fred answered, with a touch of
impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally
discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further
from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often
wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs.  "But I
contradict it again.  The story is a silly lie."

"Nonsense! you must bring dockiments.  It comes from authority."

"Name the authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the
money, and then I can disprove the story."

"It's pretty good authority, I think--a man who knows most of what goes
on in Middlemarch.  It's that fine, religious, charitable uncle o'
yours.  Come now!" Here Mr. Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake
which signified merriment.

"Mr. Bulstrode?"

"Who else, eh?"

"Then the story has grown into this lie out of some sermonizing words
he may have let fall about me.  Do they pretend that he named the man
who lent me the money?"

"If there is such a man, depend upon it Bulstrode knows him.  But,
supposing you only tried to get the money lent, and didn't get
it--Bulstrode 'ud know that too.  You bring me a writing from Bulstrode
to say he doesn't believe you've ever promised to pay your debts out o'
my land.  Come now!"

Mr. Featherstone's face required its whole scale of grimaces as a
muscular outlet to his silent triumph in the soundness of his faculties.

Fred felt himself to be in a disgusting dilemma.

"You must be joking, sir.  Mr. Bulstrode, like other men, believes
scores of things that are not true, and he has a prejudice against me.
I could easily get him to write that he knew no facts in proof of the
report you speak of, though it might lead to unpleasantness.  But I
could hardly ask him to write down what he believes or does not believe
about me." Fred paused an instant, and then added, in politic appeal to
his uncle's vanity, "That is hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask."
But he was disappointed in the result.

"Ay, I know what you mean.  You'd sooner offend me than Bulstrode.  And
what's he?--he's got no land hereabout that ever I heard tell of.  A
speckilating fellow!  He may come down any day, when the devil leaves
off backing him.  And that's what his religion means: he wants God
A'mighty to come in.  That's nonsense!  There's one thing I made out
pretty clear when I used to go to church--and it's this: God A'mighty
sticks to the land.  He promises land, and He gives land, and He makes
chaps rich with corn and cattle.  But you take the other side.  You
like Bulstrode and speckilation better than Featherstone and land."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Fred, rising, standing with his back to
the fire and beating his boot with his whip.  "I like neither Bulstrode
nor speculation." He spoke rather sulkily, feeling himself stalemated.

"Well, well, you can do without me, that's pretty clear," said old
Featherstone, secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show
himself at all independent.  "You neither want a bit of land to make a
squire of you instead of a starving parson, nor a lift of a hundred
pound by the way.  It's all one to me.  I can make five codicils if I
like, and I shall keep my bank-notes for a nest-egg. It's all one to
me."

Fred colored again.  Featherstone had rarely given him presents of
money, and at this moment it seemed almost harder to part with the
immediate prospect of bank-notes than with the more distant prospect of
the land.

"I am not ungrateful, sir.  I never meant to show disregard for any
kind intentions you might have towards me.  On the contrary."

"Very good.  Then prove it.  You bring me a letter from Bulstrode
saying he doesn't believe you've been cracking and promising to pay
your debts out o' my land, and then, if there's any scrape you've got
into, we'll see if I can't back you a bit.  Come now!  That's a
bargain.  Here, give me your arm.  I'll try and walk round the room."

Fred, in spite of his irritation, had kindness enough in him to be a
little sorry for the unloved, unvenerated old man, who with his
dropsical legs looked more than usually pitiable in walking.  While
giving his arm, he thought that he should not himself like to be an old
fellow with his constitution breaking up; and he waited
good-temperedly, first before the window to hear the wonted remarks
about the guinea-fowls and the weather-cock, and then before the scanty
book-shelves, of which the chief glories in dark calf were Josephus,
Culpepper, Klopstock's "Messiah," and several volumes of the
"Gentleman's Magazine."

"Read me the names o' the books.  Come now! you're a college man."

Fred gave him the titles.

"What did missy want with more books?  What must you be bringing her
more books for?"

"They amuse her, sir.  She is very fond of reading."

"A little too fond," said Mr. Featherstone, captiously.  "She was for
reading when she sat with me.  But I put a stop to that.  She's got the
newspaper to read out loud.  That's enough for one day, I should think.
I can't abide to see her reading to herself.  You mind and not bring
her any more books, do you hear?"

"Yes, sir, I hear." Fred had received this order before, and had
secretly disobeyed it.  He intended to disobey it again.

"Ring the bell," said Mr. Featherstone; "I want missy to come down."

Rosamond and Mary had been talking faster than their male friends.
They did not think of sitting down, but stood at the toilet-table near
the window while Rosamond took off her hat, adjusted her veil, and
applied little touches of her finger-tips to her hair--hair of
infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow.  Mary Garth seemed all
the plainer standing at an angle between the two nymphs--the one in the
glass, and the one out of it, who looked at each other with eyes of
heavenly blue, deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an
ingenious beholder could put into them, and deep enough to hide the
meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite.
Only a few children in Middlemarch looked blond by the side of
Rosamond, and the slim figure displayed by her riding-habit had
delicate undulations.  In fact, most men in Middlemarch, except her
brothers, held that Miss Vincy was the best girl in the world, and some
called her an angel.  Mary Garth, on the contrary, had the aspect of an
ordinary sinner: she was brown; her curly dark hair was rough and
stubborn; her stature was low; and it would not be true to declare, in
satisfactory antithesis, that she had all the virtues.  Plainness has
its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty; it is apt
either to feign amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the
repulsiveness of discontent: at any rate, to be called an ugly thing in
contrast with that lovely creature your companion, is apt to produce
some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the phrase.
At the age of two-and-twenty Mary had certainly not attained that
perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to
the less fortunate girl, as if they were to be obtained in quantities
ready mixed, with a flavor of resignation as required.  Her shrewdness
had a streak of satiric bitterness continually renewed and never
carried utterly out of sight, except by a strong current of gratitude
towards those who, instead of telling her that she ought to be
contented, did something to make her so.  Advancing womanhood had
tempered her plainness, which was of a good human sort, such as the
mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes under a
more or less becoming headgear.  Rembrandt would have painted her with
pleasure, and would have made her broad features look out of the canvas
with intelligent honesty.  For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was
Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor
indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood
she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself.  When she and Rosamond
happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said, laughingly--

"What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosy!  You are the most
unbecoming companion."

"Oh no!  No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and
useful, Mary.  Beauty is of very little consequence in reality," said
Rosamond, turning her head towards Mary, but with eyes swerving towards
the new view of her neck in the glass.

"You mean my beauty," said Mary, rather sardonically.

Rosamond thought, "Poor Mary, she takes the kindest things ill." Aloud
she said, "What have you been doing lately?"

"I?  Oh, minding the house--pouring out syrup--pretending to be amiable
and contented--learning to have a bad opinion of everybody."

"It is a wretched life for you."

"No," said Mary, curtly, with a little toss of her head.  "I think my
life is pleasanter than your Miss Morgan's."

"Yes; but Miss Morgan is so uninteresting, and not young."

"She is interesting to herself, I suppose; and I am not at all sure
that everything gets easier as one gets older."

"No," said Rosamond, reflectively; "one wonders what such people do,
without any prospect.  To be sure, there is religion as a support.
But," she added, dimpling, "it is very different with you, Mary.  You
may have an offer."

"Has any one told you he means to make me one?"

"Of course not.  I mean, there is a gentleman who may fall in love with
you, seeing you almost every day."

A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve
not to show any change.

"Does that always make people fall in love?" she answered, carelessly;
"it seems to me quite as often a reason for detesting each other."

"Not when they are interesting and agreeable.  I hear that Mr. Lydgate
is both."

"Oh, Mr. Lydgate!" said Mary, with an unmistakable lapse into
indifference.  "You want to know something about him," she added, not
choosing to indulge Rosamond's indirectness.

"Merely, how you like him."

"There is no question of liking at present.  My liking always wants
some little kindness to kindle it.  I am not magnanimous enough to like
people who speak to me without seeming to see me."

"Is he so haughty?" said Rosamond, with heightened satisfaction.  "You
know that he is of good family?"

"No; he did not give that as a reason."

"Mary! you are the oddest girl.  But what sort of looking man is he?
Describe him to me."

"How can one describe a man?  I can give you an inventory: heavy
eyebrows, dark eyes, a straight nose, thick dark hair, large solid
white hands--and--let me see--oh, an exquisite cambric
pocket-handkerchief.  But you will see him.  You know this is about the
time of his visits."

Rosamond blushed a little, but said, meditatively, "I rather like a
haughty manner.  I cannot endure a rattling young man."

"I did not tell you that Mr. Lydgate was haughty; but il y en a pour
tous les gouts, as little Mamselle used to say, and if any girl can
choose the particular sort of conceit she would like, I should think it
is you, Rosy."

"Haughtiness is not conceit; I call Fred conceited."

"I wish no one said any worse of him.  He should be more careful.  Mrs.
Waule has been telling uncle that Fred is very unsteady." Mary spoke
from a girlish impulse which got the better of her judgment.  There was
a vague uneasiness associated with the word "unsteady" which she hoped
Rosamond might say something to dissipate.  But she purposely abstained
from mentioning Mrs. Waule's more special insinuation.

"Oh, Fred is horrid!" said Rosamond.  She would not have allowed
herself so unsuitable a word to any one but Mary.

"What do you mean by horrid?"

"He is so idle, and makes papa so angry, and says he will not take
orders."

"I think Fred is quite right."

"How can you say he is quite right, Mary?  I thought you had more sense
of religion."

"He is not fit to be a clergyman."

"But he ought to be fit."--"Well, then, he is not what he ought to be.
I know some other people who are in the same case."

"But no one approves of them.  I should not like to marry a clergyman;
but there must be clergymen."

"It does not follow that Fred must be one."

"But when papa has been at the expense of educating him for it!  And
only suppose, if he should have no fortune left him?"

"I can suppose that very well," said Mary, dryly.

"Then I wonder you can defend Fred," said Rosamond, inclined to push
this point.

"I don't defend him," said Mary, laughing; "I would defend any parish
from having him for a clergyman."

"But of course if he were a clergyman, he must be different."

"Yes, he would be a great hypocrite; and he is not that yet."

"It is of no use saying anything to you, Mary.  You always take Fred's
part."

"Why should I not take his part?" said Mary, lighting up.  "He would
take mine.  He is the only person who takes the least trouble to oblige
me."

"You make me feel very uncomfortable, Mary," said Rosamond, with her
gravest mildness; "I would not tell mamma for the world."

"What would you not tell her?" said Mary, angrily.

"Pray do not go into a rage, Mary," said Rosamond, mildly as ever.

"If your mamma is afraid that Fred will make me an offer, tell her that
I would not marry him if he asked me.  But he is not going to do so,
that I am aware.  He certainly never has asked me."

"Mary, you are always so violent."

"And you are always so exasperating."

"I?  What can you blame me for?"

"Oh, blameless people are always the most exasperating.  There is the
bell--I think we must go down."

"I did not mean to quarrel," said Rosamond, putting on her hat.

"Quarrel?  Nonsense; we have not quarrelled.  If one is not to get into
a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?"

"Am I to repeat what you have said?" "Just as you please.  I never say
what I am afraid of having repeated.  But let us go down."

Mr. Lydgate was rather late this morning, but the visitors stayed long
enough to see him; for Mr. Featherstone asked Rosamond to sing to him,
and she herself was so kind as to propose a second favorite song of
his--"Flow on, thou shining river"--after she had sung "Home, sweet
home" (which she detested). This hard-headed old Overreach approved of
the sentimental song, as the suitable garnish for girls, and also as
fundamentally fine, sentiment being the right thing for a song.

Mr. Featherstone was still applauding the last performance, and
assuring missy that her voice was as clear as a blackbird's, when Mr.
Lydgate's horse passed the window.

His dull expectation of the usual disagreeable routine with an aged
patient--who can hardly believe that medicine would not "set him up" if
the doctor were only clever enough--added to his general disbelief in
Middlemarch charms, made a doubly effective background to this vision
of Rosamond, whom old Featherstone made haste ostentatiously to
introduce as his niece, though he had never thought it worth while to
speak of Mary Garth in that light.  Nothing escaped Lydgate in
Rosamond's graceful behavior: how delicately she waived the notice
which the old man's want of taste had thrust upon her by a quiet
gravity, not showing her dimples on the wrong occasion, but showing
them afterwards in speaking to Mary, to whom she addressed herself with
so much good-natured interest, that Lydgate, after quickly examining
Mary more fully than he had done before, saw an adorable kindness in
Rosamond's eyes.  But Mary from some cause looked rather out of temper.

"Miss Rosy has been singing me a song--you've nothing to say against
that, eh, doctor?" said Mr. Featherstone.  "I like it better than your
physic."

"That has made me forget how the time was going," said Rosamond, rising
to reach her hat, which she had laid aside before singing, so that her
flower-like head on its white stem was seen in perfection above-her
riding-habit. "Fred, we must really go."

"Very good," said Fred, who had his own reasons for not being in the
best spirits, and wanted to get away.

"Miss Vincy is a musician?" said Lydgate, following her with his eyes.
(Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness
that she was being looked at.  She was by nature an actress of parts
that entered into her physique: she even acted her own character, and
so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own.)

"The best in Middlemarch, I'll be bound," said Mr. Featherstone, "let
the next be who she will.  Eh, Fred?  Speak up for your sister."

"I'm afraid I'm out of court, sir.  My evidence would be good for
nothing."

"Middlemarch has not a very high standard, uncle," said Rosamond, with
a pretty lightness, going towards her whip, which lay at a distance.

Lydgate was quick in anticipating her.  He reached the whip before she
did, and turned to present it to her.  She bowed and looked at him: he
of course was looking at her, and their eyes met with that peculiar
meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden
divine clearance of haze.  I think Lydgate turned a little paler than
usual, but Rosamond blushed deeply and felt a certain astonishment.
After that, she was really anxious to go, and did not know what sort of
stupidity her uncle was talking of when she went to shake hands with
him.

Yet this result, which she took to be a mutual impression, called
falling in love, was just what Rosamond had contemplated beforehand.
Ever since that important new arrival in Middlemarch she had woven a
little future, of which something like this scene was the necessary
beginning.  Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a raft, or duly
escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus, have always had a
circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind, against which native
merit has urged itself in vain.  And a stranger was absolutely
necessary to Rosamond's social romance, which had always turned on a
lover and bridegroom who was not a Middlemarcher, and who had no
connections at all like her own: of late, indeed, the construction
seemed to demand that he should somehow be related to a baronet.  Now
that she and the stranger had met, reality proved much more moving than
anticipation, and Rosamond could not doubt that this was the great
epoch of her life.  She judged of her own symptoms as those of
awakening love, and she held it still more natural that Mr. Lydgate
should have fallen in love at first sight of her.  These things
happened so often at balls, and why not by the morning light, when the
complexion showed all the better for it?  Rosamond, though no older
than Mary, was rather used to being fallen in love with; but she, for
her part, had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards
both fresh sprig and faded bachelor.  And here was Mr. Lydgate suddenly
corresponding to her ideal, being altogether foreign to Middlemarch,
carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family, and
possessing connections which offered vistas of that middle-class
heaven, rank; a man of talent, also, whom it would be especially
delightful to enslave: in fact, a man who had touched her nature quite
newly, and brought a vivid interest into her life which was better than
any fancied "might-be" such as she was in the habit of opposing to the
actual.

Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied
and inclined to be silent.  Rosamond, whose basis for her structure had
the usual airy slightness, was of remarkably detailed and realistic
imagination when the foundation had been once presupposed; and before
they had ridden a mile she was far on in the costume and introductions
of her wedded life, having determined on her house in Middlemarch, and
foreseen the visits she would pay to her husband's high-bred relatives
at a distance, whose finished manners she could appropriate as
thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments, preparing
herself thus for vaguer elevations which might ultimately come.  There
was nothing financial, still less sordid, in her previsions: she cared
about what were considered refinements, and not about the money that
was to pay for them.

Fred's mind, on the other hand, was busy with an anxiety which even his
ready hopefulness could not immediately quell.  He saw no way of
eluding Featherstone's stupid demand without incurring consequences
which he liked less even than the task of fulfilling it.  His father
was already out of humor with him, and would be still more so if he
were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and
the Bulstrodes.  Then, he himself hated having to go and speak to his
uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said many
foolish things about Featherstone's property, and these had been
magnified by report.  Fred felt that he made a wretched figure as a
fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like
Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates at his bidding.
But--those expectations!  He really had them, and he saw no agreeable
alternative if he gave them up; besides, he had lately made a debt
which galled him extremely, and old Featherstone had almost bargained
to pay it off.  The whole affair was miserably small: his debts were
small, even his expectations were not anything so very magnificent.
Fred had known men to whom he would have been ashamed of confessing the
smallness of his scrapes.  Such ruminations naturally produced a streak
of misanthropic bitterness.  To be born the son of a Middlemarch
manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such
men as Mainwaring and Vyan--certainly life was a poor business, when a
spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best of everything,
had so poor an outlook.

It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bulstrode's name
in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstone's; nor could this have
made any difference to his position.  He saw plainly enough that the
old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little, and
also probably to get some satisfaction out of seeing him on unpleasant
terms with Bulstrode.  Fred fancied that he saw to the bottom of his
uncle Featherstone's soul, though in reality half what he saw there was
no more than the reflex of his own inclinations.  The difficult task of
knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is
chiefly made up of their own wishes.

Fred's main point of debate with himself was, whether he should tell
his father, or try to get through the affair without his father's
knowledge.  It was probably Mrs. Waule who had been talking about him;
and if Mary Garth had repeated Mrs. Waule's report to Rosamond, it
would be sure to reach his father, who would as surely question him
about it.  He said to Rosamond, as they slackened their pace--

"Rosy, did Mary tell you that Mrs. Waule had said anything about me?"

"Yes, indeed, she did."

"What?"

"That you were very unsteady."

"Was that all?"

"I should think that was enough, Fred."

"You are sure she said no more?"

"Mary mentioned nothing else.  But really, Fred, I think you ought to
be ashamed."

"Oh, fudge!  Don't lecture me.  What did Mary say about it?"

"I am not obliged to tell you.  You care so very much what Mary says,
and you are too rude to allow me to speak."

"Of course I care what Mary says.  She is the best girl I know."

"I should never have thought she was a girl to fall in love with."

"How do you know what men would fall in love with?  Girls never know."

"At least, Fred, let me advise _you_ not to fall in love with her, for
she says she would not marry you if you asked her."

"She might have waited till I did ask her."

"I knew it would nettle you, Fred."

"Not at all.  She would not have said so if you had not provoked her."
Before reaching home, Fred concluded that he would tell the whole
affair as simply as possible to his father, who might perhaps take on
himself the unpleasant business of speaking to Bulstrode.

BOOK II.

OLD AND YOUNG.

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

completion: Fred and Rosamond ride over to Stone Court, as planned. Mr. Featherstone is bossing Mary Garth around before they get there, and being rude to his sister, Mrs. Waule. Mrs. Waule is telling him that Fred Vincy has been borrowing money from people in town, using his expectations of an inheritance from Mr. Featherstone as security. Mr. Featherstone is irritated that Fred would assume that he's going to be a beneficiary in his will, but he's also irritated that his sister is tattling on Fred. Basically, Featherstone is always irritated with everybody. Just then, Fred and Rosamond arrive, and Mr. Featherstone unceremoniously asks his sister to leave. Rosamond leaves to have a private chat with Mary Garth, and Mr. Featherstone is alone with Fred. He asks him about what Mrs. Waule had said, and Fred denies ever having borrowed money using Featherstone's estate as a security. Mr. Featherstone wants more than denials, though - he wants proof. He tells Fred to come back with a letter from Mr. Bulstrode . Mostly Mr. Featherstone just wants to order people around, since he's too old and sick to get out much anymore. And here's a great opportunity for him to wield his power over Fred, and he's not going to let it go to waste. Featherstone bargains with Fred, and promises to give him a gift of some cash to cover his debts if he'll bring the letter from Mr. Bulstrode. Fred reluctantly agrees. Mr. Featherstone notices that Fred brought books with him to lend to Mary Garth. Mr. Featherstone is annoyed, and forbids Fred from bringing Mary any more books. He doesn't like to see her amusing herself, and he likes asserting his power. Fred agrees, but secretly plans to do it anyway. Meanwhile, Rosamond is upstairs with Mary Garth. She looks all the prettier next to Mary, who is relatively plain. Plain, but honest. Rosamond tries indirectly to ask Mary about Mr. Lydgate, since he's Featherstone's new doctor, but Mary cuts to the chase - she likes direct questions, not a lot of beating around the bush. Mary describes Lydgate, and reminds Rosamond that she'll probably see him, anyway - he comes everyday at about this time to check on Mr. Featherstone. Rosamond blushes: she knew that she'd probably run into the young doctor, and that's why she decided to come. They change the subject and begin discussing Fred. Rosamond says that their father is awfully angry with Fred, because Fred decided not to finish his university degree. He'd only been sent to university because his father wanted him to be a clergyman, but Fred decided that he wasn't "fit" to be a vicar, so he left school. Mary takes Fred's side in the debate, and Rosamond insinuates that she's only siding with him because she's in love with Fred. Mary says she wouldn't marry Fred if he did ask her, and he hasn't anyway. They make up , and go back downstairs. Mr. Lydgate arrives just as Rosamond is finishing a song . He's struck by her beauty, and their eyes meet just as Rosamond had imagined: he turns a little pale, and she blushes. Rosamond and Fred leave together and ride home in silence - Rosamond fantasizing about her future married life with Mr. Lydgate and her visits to his fancy aristocratic relatives, and Fred brooding over the unpleasant conversation he's going to have to have with his uncle Bulstrode. Before they reach home, he decides that he'll explain the whole thing to his father, and maybe get his father to discuss the matter with Mr. Bulstrode.


prompt:
Chapter: 1st Gent. How class your man?--as better than the most,
                 Or, seeming better, worse beneath that cloak?
                 As saint or knave, pilgrim or hypocrite?
    2d Gent.  Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of books
                 The drifted relics of all time.
                 As well sort them at once by size and livery:
                 Vellum, tall copies, and the common calf
                 Will hardly cover more diversity
                 Than all your labels cunningly devised
                 To class your unread authors.

In consequence of what he had heard from Fred, Mr. Vincy determined to
speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank at half-past
one, when he was usually free from other callers.  But a visitor had
come in at one o'clock, and Mr. Bulstrode had so much to say to him,
that there was little chance of the interview being over in half an
hour.  The banker's speech was fluent, but it was also copious, and he
used up an appreciable amount of time in brief meditative pauses.  Do
not imagine his sickly aspect to have been of the yellow, black-haired
sort: he had a pale blond skin, thin gray-besprinkled brown hair,
light-gray eyes, and a large forehead.  Loud men called his subdued
tone an undertone, and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with
openness; though there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not
be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can
be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs.
Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening, and
an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those persons
who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the
utmost improvement from their discourse.  Others, who expected to make
no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them.
If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction
in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look
judicial.  Such joys are reserved for conscious merit.  Hence Mr.
Bulstrode's close attention was not agreeable to the publicans and
sinners in Middlemarch; it was attributed by some to his being a
Pharisee, and by others to his being Evangelical.  Less superficial
reasoners among them wished to know who his father and grandfather
were, observing that five-and-twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of
a Bulstrode in Middlemarch.  To his present visitor, Lydgate, the
scrutinizing look was a matter of indifference: he simply formed an
unfavorable opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he
had an eager inward life with little enjoyment of tangible things.

"I shall be exceedingly obliged if you will look in on me here
occasionally, Mr. Lydgate," the banker observed, after a brief pause.
"If, as I dare to hope, I have the privilege of finding you a valuable
coadjutor in the interesting matter of hospital management, there will
be many questions which we shall need to discuss in private.  As to the
new hospital, which is nearly finished, I shall consider what you have
said about the advantages of the special destination for fevers.  The
decision will rest with me, for though Lord Medlicote has given the
land and timber for the building, he is not disposed to give his
personal attention to the object."

"There are few things better worth the pains in a provincial town like
this," said Lydgate.  "A fine fever hospital in addition to the old
infirmary might be the nucleus of a medical school here, when once we
get our medical reforms; and what would do more for medical education
than the spread of such schools over the country?  A born provincial
man who has a grain of public spirit as well as a few ideas, should do
what he can to resist the rush of everything that is a little better
than common towards London.  Any valid professional aims may often find
a freer, if not a richer field, in the provinces."

One of Lydgate's gifts was a voice habitually deep and sonorous, yet
capable of becoming very low and gentle at the right moment.  About his
ordinary bearing there was a certain fling, a fearless expectation of
success, a confidence in his own powers and integrity much fortified by
contempt for petty obstacles or seductions of which he had had no
experience.  But this proud openness was made lovable by an expression
of unaffected good-will. Mr. Bulstrode perhaps liked him the better for
the difference between them in pitch and manners; he certainly liked
him the better, as Rosamond did, for being a stranger in Middlemarch.
One can begin so many things with a new person!--even begin to be a
better man.

"I shall rejoice to furnish your zeal with fuller opportunities," Mr.
Bulstrode answered; "I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence of
my new hospital, should a maturer knowledge favor that issue, for I am
determined that so great an object shall not be shackled by our two
physicians.  Indeed, I am encouraged to consider your advent to this
town as a gracious indication that a more manifest blessing is now to
be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto been much with stood.
With regard to the old infirmary, we have gained the initial point--I
mean your election.  And now I hope you will not shrink from incurring
a certain amount of jealousy and dislike from your professional
brethren by presenting yourself as a reformer."

"I will not profess bravery," said Lydgate, smiling, "but I acknowledge
a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I should not care for my
profession, if I did not believe that better methods were to be found
and enforced there as well as everywhere else."

"The standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, my dear sir,"
said the banker.  "I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status,
for our medical men are most of them connected with respectable
townspeople here.  My own imperfect health has induced me to give some
attention to those palliative resources which the divine mercy has
placed within our reach.  I have consulted eminent men in the
metropolis, and I am painfully aware of the backwardness under which
medical treatment labors in our provincial districts."

"Yes;--with our present medical rules and education, one must be
satisfied now and then to meet with a fair practitioner.  As to all the
higher questions which determine the starting-point of a diagnosis--as
to the philosophy of medical evidence--any glimmering of these can only
come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have
usually no more notion than the man in the moon."

Mr. Bulstrode, bending and looking intently, found the form which
Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his
comprehension.  Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the
topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.

"I am aware," he said, "that the peculiar bias of medical ability is
towards material means.  Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, I hope we shall not
vary in sentiment as to a measure in which you are not likely to be
actively concerned, but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an
aid to me.  You recognize, I hope; the existence of spiritual interests
in your patients?"

"Certainly I do.  But those words are apt to cover different meanings
to different minds."

"Precisely.  And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as no
teaching.  Now a point which I have much at heart to secure is a new
regulation as to clerical attendance at the old infirmary.  The
building stands in Mr. Farebrother's parish.  You know Mr. Farebrother?"

"I have seen him.  He gave me his vote.  I must call to thank him.  He
seems a very bright pleasant little fellow.  And I understand he is a
naturalist."

"Mr. Farebrother, my dear sir, is a man deeply painful to contemplate.
I suppose there is not a clergyman in this country who has greater
talents."  Mr. Bulstrode paused and looked meditative.

"I have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent in
Middlemarch," said Lydgate, bluntly.

"What I desire," Mr. Bulstrode continued, looking still more serious,
"is that Mr. Farebrother's attendance at the hospital should be
superseded by the appointment of a chaplain--of Mr. Tyke, in fact--and
that no other spiritual aid should be called in."

"As a medical man I could have no opinion on such a point unless I knew
Mr. Tyke, and even then I should require to know the cases in which he
was applied."  Lydgate smiled, but he was bent on being circumspect.

"Of course you cannot enter fully into the merits of this measure at
present.  But"--here Mr. Bulstrode began to speak with a more chiselled
emphasis--"the subject is likely to be referred to the medical board of
the infirmary, and what I trust I may ask of you is, that in virtue of
the cooperation between us which I now look forward to, you will not,
so far as you are concerned, be influenced by my opponents in this
matter."

"I hope I shall have nothing to do with clerical disputes," said
Lydgate.  "The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession."

"My responsibility, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind.  With me,
indeed, this question is one of sacred accountableness; whereas with my
opponents, I have good reason to say that it is an occasion for
gratifying a spirit of worldly opposition.  But I shall not therefore
drop one iota of my convictions, or cease to identify myself with that
truth which an evil generation hates.  I have devoted myself to this
object of hospital-improvement, but I will boldly confess to you, Mr.
Lydgate, that I should have no interest in hospitals if I believed that
nothing more was concerned therein than the cure of mortal diseases.  I
have another ground of action, and in the face of persecution I will
not conceal it."

Mr. Bulstrode's voice had become a loud and agitated whisper as he said
the last words.

"There we certainly differ," said Lydgate.  But he was not sorry that
the door was now opened, and Mr. Vincy was announced.  That florid
sociable personage was become more interesting to him since he had seen
Rosamond.  Not that, like her, he had been weaving any future in which
their lots were united; but a man naturally remembers a charming girl
with pleasure, and is willing to dine where he may see her again.
Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy had given that invitation which he had
been "in no hurry about," for Rosamond at breakfast had mentioned that
she thought her uncle Featherstone had taken the new doctor into great
favor.

Mr. Bulstrode, alone with his brother-in-law, poured himself out a
glass of water, and opened a sandwich-box.

"I cannot persuade you to adopt my regimen, Vincy?"

"No, no; I've no opinion of that system.  Life wants padding," said Mr.
Vincy, unable to omit his portable theory.  "However," he went on,
accenting the word, as if to dismiss all irrelevance, "what I came here
to talk about was a little affair of my young scapegrace, Fred's."

"That is a subject on which you and I are likely to take quite as
different views as on diet, Vincy."

"I hope not this time."  (Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humored.)
"The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstone's. Somebody has
been cooking up a story out of spite, and telling it to the old man, to
try to set him against Fred.  He's very fond of Fred, and is likely to
do something handsome for him; indeed he has as good as told Fred that
he means to leave him his land, and that makes other people jealous."

"Vincy, I must repeat, that you will not get any concurrence from me as
to the course you have pursued with your eldest son.  It was entirely
from worldly vanity that you destined him for the Church: with a family
of three sons and four daughters, you were not warranted in devoting
money to an expensive education which has succeeded in nothing but in
giving him extravagant idle habits.  You are now reaping the
consequences."

To point out other people's errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely
shrank from, but Mr. Vincy was not equally prepared to be patient.
When a man has the immediate prospect of being mayor, and is ready, in
the interests of commerce, to take up a firm attitude on politics
generally, he has naturally a sense of his importance to the framework
of things which seems to throw questions of private conduct into the
background.  And this particular reproof irritated him more than any
other.  It was eminently superfluous to him to be told that he was
reaping the consequences.  But he felt his neck under Bulstrode's yoke;
and though he usually enjoyed kicking, he was anxious to refrain from
that relief.

"As to that, Bulstrode, it's no use going back.  I'm not one of your
pattern men, and I don't pretend to be.  I couldn't foresee everything
in the trade; there wasn't a finer business in Middlemarch than ours,
and the lad was clever.  My poor brother was in the Church, and would
have done well--had got preferment already, but that stomach fever took
him off: else he might have been a dean by this time.  I think I was
justified in what I tried to do for Fred.  If you come to religion, it
seems to me a man shouldn't want to carve out his meat to an ounce
beforehand:--one must trust a little to Providence and be generous.
It's a good British feeling to try and raise your family a little: in
my opinion, it's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance."

"I don't wish to act otherwise than as your best friend, Vincy, when I
say that what you have been uttering just now is one mass of
worldliness and inconsistent folly."

"Very well," said Mr. Vincy, kicking in spite of resolutions, "I never
professed to be anything but worldly; and, what's more, I don't see
anybody else who is not worldly.  I suppose you don't conduct business
on what you call unworldly principles.  The only difference I see is
that one worldliness is a little bit honester than another."

"This kind of discussion is unfruitful, Vincy," said Mr. Bulstrode,
who, finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair, and
shaded his eyes as if weary.  "You had some more particular business."

"Yes, yes.  The long and short of it is, somebody has told old
Featherstone, giving you as the authority, that Fred has been borrowing
or trying to borrow money on the prospect of his land.  Of course you
never said any such nonsense.  But the old fellow will insist on it
that Fred should bring him a denial in your handwriting; that is, just
a bit of a note saying you don't believe a word of such stuff, either
of his having borrowed or tried to borrow in such a fool's way.  I
suppose you can have no objection to do that."

"Pardon me.  I have an objection.  I am by no means sure that your son,
in his recklessness and ignorance--I will use no severer word--has not
tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that
some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a
presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other
folly in the world."

"But Fred gives me his honor that he has never borrowed money on the
pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land.  He is not a
liar.  I don't want to make him better than he is.  I have blown him up
well--nobody can say I wink at what he does.  But he is not a liar.
And I should have thought--but I may be wrong--that there was no
religion to hinder a man from believing the best of a young fellow,
when you don't know worse.  It seems to me it would be a poor sort of
religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't
believe such harm of him as you've got no good reason to believe."

"I am not at all sure that I should be befriending your son by
smoothing his way to the future possession of Featherstone's property.
I cannot regard wealth as a blessing to those who use it simply as a
harvest for this world.  You do not like to hear these things, Vincy,
but on this occasion I feel called upon to tell you that I have no
motive for furthering such a disposition of property as that which you
refer to.  I do not shrink from saying that it will not tend to your
son's eternal welfare or to the glory of God.  Why then should you
expect me to pen this kind of affidavit, which has no object but to
keep up a foolish partiality and secure a foolish bequest?"

"If you mean to hinder everybody from having money but saints and
evangelists, you must give up some profitable partnerships, that's all
I can say," Mr. Vincy burst out very bluntly.  "It may be for the glory
of God, but it is not for the glory of the Middlemarch trade, that
Plymdale's house uses those blue and green dyes it gets from the
Brassing manufactory; they rot the silk, that's all I know about it.
Perhaps if other people knew so much of the profit went to the glory of
God, they might like it better.  But I don't mind so much about that--I
could get up a pretty row, if I chose."

Mr. Bulstrode paused a little before he answered.  "You pain me very
much by speaking in this way, Vincy.  I do not expect you to understand
my grounds of action--it is not an easy thing even to thread a path for
principles in the intricacies of the world--still less to make the
thread clear for the careless and the scoffing.  You must remember, if
you please, that I stretch my tolerance towards you as my wife's
brother, and that it little becomes you to complain of me as
withholding material help towards the worldly position of your family.
I must remind you that it is not your own prudence or judgment that has
enabled you to keep your place in the trade."

"Very likely not; but you have been no loser by my trade yet," said Mr.
Vincy, thoroughly nettled (a result which was seldom much retarded by
previous resolutions). "And when you married Harriet, I don't see how
you could expect that our families should not hang by the same nail.
If you've changed your mind, and want my family to come down in the
world, you'd better say so.  I've never changed; I'm a plain Churchman
now, just as I used to be before doctrines came up.  I take the world
as I find it, in trade and everything else.  I'm contented to be no
worse than my neighbors.  But if you want us to come down in the world,
say so.  I shall know better what to do then."

"You talk unreasonably.  Shall you come down in the world for want of
this letter about your son?"

"Well, whether or not, I consider it very unhandsome of you to refuse
it.  Such doings may be lined with religion, but outside they have a
nasty, dog-in-the-manger look.  You might as well slander Fred: it
comes pretty near to it when you refuse to say you didn't set a slander
going.  It's this sort of thing--this tyrannical spirit, wanting to
play bishop and banker everywhere--it's this sort of thing makes a
man's name stink."

"Vincy, if you insist on quarrelling with me, it will be exceedingly
painful to Harriet as well as myself," said Mr. Bulstrode, with a
trifle more eagerness and paleness than usual.

"I don't want to quarrel.  It's for my interest--and perhaps for yours
too--that we should be friends.  I bear you no grudge; I think no worse
of you than I do of other people.  A man who half starves himself, and
goes the length in family prayers, and so on, that you do, believes in
his religion whatever it may be: you could turn over your capital just
as fast with cursing and swearing:--plenty of fellows do.  You like to
be master, there's no denying that; you must be first chop in heaven,
else you won't like it much.  But you're my sister's husband, and we
ought to stick together; and if I know Harriet, she'll consider it your
fault if we quarrel because you strain at a gnat in this way, and
refuse to do Fred a good turn.  And I don't mean to say I shall bear it
well.  I consider it unhandsome."

Mr. Vincy rose, began to button his great-coat, and looked steadily at
his brother-in-law, meaning to imply a demand for a decisive answer.

This was not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing
Mr. Vincy, and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of
himself in the course unflattering mirror which that manufacturer's
mind presented to the subtler lights and shadows of his fellow-men; and
perhaps his experience ought to have warned him how the scene would
end.  But a full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters even in
the rain, when they are worse than useless; and a fine fount of
admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.

It was not in Mr. Bulstrode's nature to comply directly in consequence
of uncomfortable suggestions.  Before changing his course, he always
needed to shape his motives and bring them into accordance with his
habitual standard.  He said, at last--

"I will reflect a little, Vincy.  I will mention the subject to
Harriet.  I shall probably send you a letter."

"Very well.  As soon as you can, please.  I hope it will all be settled
before I see you to-morrow."

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

completion: The chapter opens with Mr. Vincy going to see Mr. Bulstrode to ask him to write that letter for Fred. The narrator describes Mr. Bulstrode as a sickly, pale man, whose soft voice had something untrustworthy in it, somehow. Mr. Bulstrode is just finishing up with another visitor when Mr. Vincy arrives. It's Mr. Lydgate, and they're discussing plans to open a new fever hospital in the area. Mr. Bulstrode would fund it, and Mr. Lydgate would be the head doctor. During their chat, Mr. Bulstrode admits to Mr. Lydgate that the medical profession in Middlemarch is rather behind the times. Lydgate plans to change that and get Middlemarch up to date. Bulstrode says that their hospital will need a chaplain, and he wants to appoint Mr. Tyke, even though everyone will expect it to go to Mr. Farebrother. Lydgate knows and likes Mr. Farebrother, and has never met Mr. Tyke, but, as a doctor, he doesn't really see how the appointment of the chaplain is any of his business. As he's leaving Mr. Bulstrode's house, Lydgate passes Mr. Vincy, and receives a dinner invitation. That should make Rosamond happy. Mr. Vincy starts to explain the situation to Mr. Bulstrode, and has to keep himself from being snippy when Bulstrode starts to lecture him about the mistakes he's made in raising his children. Bulstrode at first refuses to write the letter, and finally agrees to think it over.


prompt:
Chapter: "Follows here the strict receipt
     For that sauce to dainty meat,
     Named Idleness, which many eat
     By preference, and call it sweet:
     First watch for morsels, like a hound
     Mix well with buffets, stir them round
     With good thick oil of flatteries,
     And froth with mean self-lauding lies.
     Serve warm: the vessels you must choose
     To keep it in are dead men's shoes."

Mr. Bulstrode's consultation of Harriet seemed to have had the effect
desired by Mr. Vincy, for early the next morning a letter came which
Fred could carry to Mr. Featherstone as the required testimony.

The old gentleman was staying in bed on account of the cold weather,
and as Mary Garth was not to be seen in the sitting-room, Fred went
up-stairs immediately and presented the letter to his uncle, who,
propped up comfortably on a bed-rest, was not less able than usual to
enjoy his consciousness of wisdom in distrusting and frustrating
mankind.  He put on his spectacles to read the letter, pursing up his
lips and drawing down their corners.

"Under the circumstances I will not decline to state my
conviction--tchah! what fine words the fellow puts!  He's as fine as an
auctioneer--that your son Frederic has not obtained any advance of
money on bequests promised by Mr. Featherstone--promised? who said I
had ever promised?  I promise nothing--I shall make codicils as long as
I like--and that considering the nature of such a proceeding, it is
unreasonable to presume that a young man of sense and character would
attempt it--ah, but the gentleman doesn't say you are a young man of
sense and character, mark you that, sir!--As to my own concern with any
report of such a nature, I distinctly affirm that I never made any
statement to the effect that your son had borrowed money on any
property that might accrue to him on Mr. Featherstone's demise--bless
my heart! 'property'--accrue--demise!  Lawyer Standish is nothing to
him.  He couldn't speak finer if he wanted to borrow.  Well," Mr.
Featherstone here looked over his spectacles at Fred, while he handed
back the letter to him with a contemptuous gesture, "you don't suppose
I believe a thing because Bulstrode writes it out fine, eh?"

Fred colored.  "You wished to have the letter, sir.  I should think it
very likely that Mr. Bulstrode's denial is as good as the authority
which told you what he denies."

"Every bit.  I never said I believed either one or the other.  And now
what d' you expect?" said Mr. Featherstone, curtly, keeping on his
spectacles, but withdrawing his hands under his wraps.

"I expect nothing, sir."  Fred with difficulty restrained himself from
venting his irritation.  "I came to bring you the letter.  If you like
I will bid you good morning."

"Not yet, not yet.  Ring the bell; I want missy to come."

It was a servant who came in answer to the bell.

"Tell missy to come!" said Mr. Featherstone, impatiently.  "What
business had she to go away?"  He spoke in the same tone when Mary came.

"Why couldn't you sit still here till I told you to go? I want my
waistcoat now.  I told you always to put it on the bed."

Mary's eyes looked rather red, as if she had been crying.  It was clear
that Mr. Featherstone was in one of his most snappish humors this
morning, and though Fred had now the prospect of receiving the
much-needed present of money, he would have preferred being free to
turn round on the old tyrant and tell him that Mary Garth was too good
to be at his beck.  Though Fred had risen as she entered the room, she
had barely noticed him, and looked as if her nerves were quivering with
the expectation that something would be thrown at her.  But she never
had anything worse than words to dread.  When she went to reach the
waistcoat from a peg, Fred went up to her and said, "Allow me."

"Let it alone!  You bring it, missy, and lay it down here," said Mr.
Featherstone.  "Now you go away again till I call you," he added, when
the waistcoat was laid down by him.  It was usual with him to season
his pleasure in showing favor to one person by being especially
disagreeable to another, and Mary was always at hand to furnish the
condiment.  When his own relatives came she was treated better.  Slowly
he took out a bunch of keys from the waistcoat pocket, and slowly he
drew forth a tin box which was under the bed-clothes.

"You expect I am going to give you a little fortune, eh?" he said,
looking above his spectacles and pausing in the act of opening the lid.

"Not at all, sir.  You were good enough to speak of making me a present
the other day, else, of course, I should not have thought of the
matter."  But Fred was of a hopeful disposition, and a vision had
presented itself of a sum just large enough to deliver him from a
certain anxiety.  When Fred got into debt, it always seemed to him
highly probable that something or other--he did not necessarily
conceive what--would come to pass enabling him to pay in due time.  And
now that the providential occurrence was apparently close at hand, it
would have been sheer absurdity to think that the supply would be short
of the need: as absurd as a faith that believed in half a miracle for
want of strength to believe in a whole one.

The deep-veined hands fingered many bank-notes-one after the other,
laying them down flat again, while Fred leaned back in his chair,
scorning to look eager.  He held himself to be a gentleman at heart,
and did not like courting an old fellow for his money.  At last, Mr.
Featherstone eyed him again over his spectacles and presented him with
a little sheaf of notes: Fred could see distinctly that there were but
five, as the less significant edges gaped towards him.  But then, each
might mean fifty pounds.  He took them, saying--

"I am very much obliged to you, sir," and was going to roll them up
without seeming to think of their value.  But this did not suit Mr.
Featherstone, who was eying him intently.

"Come, don't you think it worth your while to count 'em?  You take
money like a lord; I suppose you lose it like one."

"I thought I was not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, sir.  But I
shall be very happy to count them."

Fred was not so happy, however, after he had counted them.  For they
actually presented the absurdity of being less than his hopefulness had
decided that they must be.  What can the fitness of things mean, if not
their fitness to a man's expectations?  Failing this, absurdity and
atheism gape behind him.  The collapse for Fred was severe when he
found that he held no more than five twenties, and his share in the
higher education of this country did not seem to help him.
Nevertheless he said, with rapid changes in his fair complexion--

"It is very handsome of you, sir."

"I should think it is," said Mr. Featherstone, locking his box and
replacing it, then taking off his spectacles deliberately, and at
length, as if his inward meditation had more deeply convinced him,
repeating, "I should think it handsome."

"I assure you, sir, I am very grateful," said Fred, who had had time to
recover his cheerful air.

"So you ought to be.  You want to cut a figure in the world, and I
reckon Peter Featherstone is the only one you've got to trust to." Here
the old man's eyes gleamed with a curiously mingled satisfaction in the
consciousness that this smart young fellow relied upon him, and that
the smart young fellow was rather a fool for doing so.

"Yes, indeed: I was not born to very splendid chances.  Few men have
been more cramped than I have been," said Fred, with some sense of
surprise at his own virtue, considering how hardly he was dealt with.
"It really seems a little too bad to have to ride a broken-winded
hunter, and see men, who, are not half such good judges as yourself,
able to throw away any amount of money on buying bad bargains."

"Well, you can buy yourself a fine hunter now.  Eighty pound is enough
for that, I reckon--and you'll have twenty pound over to get yourself
out of any little scrape," said Mr. Featherstone, chuckling slightly.

"You are very good, sir," said Fred, with a fine sense of contrast
between the words and his feeling.

"Ay, rather a better uncle than your fine uncle Bulstrode.  You won't
get much out of his spekilations, I think.  He's got a pretty strong
string round your father's leg, by what I hear, eh?"

"My father never tells me anything about his affairs, sir."

"Well, he shows some sense there.  But other people find 'em out
without his telling.  _He'll_ never have much to leave you: he'll
most-like die without a will--he's the sort of man to do it--let 'em
make him mayor of Middlemarch as much as they like.  But you won't get
much by his dying without a will, though you _are_ the eldest son."

Fred thought that Mr. Featherstone had never been so disagreeable
before.  True, he had never before given him quite so much money at
once.

"Shall I destroy this letter of Mr. Bulstrode's, sir?" said Fred,
rising with the letter as if he would put it in the fire.

"Ay, ay, I don't want it.  It's worth no money to me."

Fred carried the letter to the fire, and thrust the poker through it
with much zest.  He longed to get out of the room, but he was a little
ashamed before his inner self, as well as before his uncle, to run away
immediately after pocketing the money.  Presently, the farm-bailiff
came up to give his master a report, and Fred, to his unspeakable
relief, was dismissed with the injunction to come again soon.

He had longed not only to be set free from his uncle, but also to find
Mary Garth.  She was now in her usual place by the fire, with sewing in
her hands and a book open on the little table by her side.  Her eyelids
had lost some of their redness now, and she had her usual air of
self-command.

"Am I wanted up-stairs?" she said, half rising as Fred entered.

"No; I am only dismissed, because Simmons is gone up."

Mary sat down again, and resumed her work.  She was certainly treating
him with more indifference than usual: she did not know how
affectionately indignant he had felt on her behalf up-stairs.

"May I stay here a little, Mary, or shall I bore you?"

"Pray sit down," said Mary; "you will not be so heavy a bore as Mr.
John Waule, who was here yesterday, and he sat down without asking my
leave."

"Poor fellow!  I think he is in love with you."

"I am not aware of it.  And to me it is one of the most odious things
in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling
in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her, and to whom
she is grateful.  I should have thought that I, at least, might have
been safe from all that.  I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity
of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me."

Mary did not mean to betray any feeling, but in spite of herself she
ended in a tremulous tone of vexation.

"Confound John Waule!  I did not mean to make you angry.  I didn't know
you had any reason for being grateful to me.  I forgot what a great
service you think it if any one snuffs a candle for you."  Fred also had
his pride, and was not going to show that he knew what had called forth
this outburst of Mary's.

"Oh, I am not angry, except with the ways of the world.  I do like to
be spoken to as if I had common-sense. I really often feel as if I
could understand a little more than I ever hear even from young
gentlemen who have been to college."  Mary had recovered, and she spoke
with a suppressed rippling under-current of laughter pleasant to hear.

"I don't care how merry you are at my expense this morning," said Fred,
"I thought you looked so sad when you came up-stairs. It is a shame you
should stay here to be bullied in that way."

"Oh, I have an easy life--by comparison.  I have tried being a teacher,
and I am not fit for that: my mind is too fond of wandering on its own
way.  I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is
paid for, and never really doing it.  Everything here I can do as well
as any one else could; perhaps better than some--Rosy, for example.
Though she is just the sort of beautiful creature that is imprisoned
with ogres in fairy tales."

"_Rosy!_" cried Fred, in a tone of profound brotherly scepticism.

"Come, Fred!" said Mary, emphatically; "you have no right to be so
critical."

"Do you mean anything particular--just now?"

"No, I mean something general--always."

"Oh, that I am idle and extravagant.  Well, I am not fit to be a poor
man.  I should not have made a bad fellow if I had been rich."

"You would have done your duty in that state of life to which it has
not pleased God to call you," said Mary, laughing.

"Well, I couldn't do my duty as a clergyman, any more than you could do
yours as a governess.  You ought to have a little fellow-feeling there,
Mary."

"I never said you ought to be a clergyman.  There are other sorts of
work.  It seems to me very miserable not to resolve on some course and
act accordingly."

"So I could, if--" Fred broke off, and stood up, leaning against the
mantel-piece.

"If you were sure you should not have a fortune?"

"I did not say that.  You want to quarrel with me.  It is too bad of
you to be guided by what other people say about me."

"How can I want to quarrel with you?  I should be quarrelling with all
my new books," said Mary, lifting the volume on the table.  "However
naughty you may be to other people, you are good to me."

"Because I like you better than any one else.  But I know you despise
me."

"Yes, I do--a little," said Mary, nodding, with a smile.

"You would admire a stupendous fellow, who would have wise opinions
about everything."

"Yes, I should."  Mary was sewing swiftly, and seemed provokingly
mistress of the situation.  When a conversation has taken a wrong turn
for us, we only get farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness.
This was what Fred Vincy felt.

"I suppose a woman is never in love with any one she has always
known--ever since she can remember; as a man often is.  It is always
some new fellow who strikes a girl."

"Let me see," said Mary, the corners of her mouth curling archly; "I
must go back on my experience.  There is Juliet--she seems an example
of what you say.  But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long
while; and Brenda Troil--she had known Mordaunt Merton ever since they
were children; but then he seems to have been an estimable young man;
and Minna was still more deeply in love with Cleveland, who was a
stranger.  Waverley was new to Flora MacIvor; but then she did not fall
in love with him.  And there are Olivia and Sophia Primrose, and
Corinne--they may be said to have fallen in love with new men.
Altogether, my experience is rather mixed."

Mary looked up with some roguishness at Fred, and that look of hers was
very dear to him, though the eyes were nothing more than clear windows
where observation sat laughingly.  He was certainly an affectionate
fellow, and as he had grown from boy to man, he had grown in love with
his old playmate, notwithstanding that share in the higher education of
the country which had exalted his views of rank and income.

"When a man is not loved, it is no use for him to say that he could be
a better fellow--could do anything--I mean, if he were sure of being
loved in return."

"Not of the least use in the world for him to say he _could_ be better.
Might, could, would--they are contemptible auxiliaries."

"I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one
woman to love him dearly."

"I think the goodness should come before he expects that."

"You know better, Mary.  Women don't love men for their goodness."

"Perhaps not.  But if they love them, they never think them bad."

"It is hardly fair to say I am bad."

"I said nothing at all about you."

"I never shall be good for anything, Mary, if you will not say that you
love me--if you will not promise to marry me--I mean, when I am able to
marry."

"If I did love you, I would not marry you: I would certainly not
promise ever to marry you."

"I think that is quite wicked, Mary.  If you love me, you ought to
promise to marry me."

"On the contrary, I think it would be wicked in me to marry you even if
I did love you."

"You mean, just as I am, without any means of maintaining a wife.  Of
course: I am but three-and-twenty."

"In that last point you will alter.  But I am not so sure of any other
alteration.  My father says an idle man ought not to exist, much less,
be married."

"Then I am to blow my brains out?"

"No; on the whole I should think you would do better to pass your
examination.  I have heard Mr. Farebrother say it is disgracefully
easy."

"That is all very fine.  Anything is easy to him.  Not that cleverness
has anything to do with it.  I am ten times cleverer than many men who
pass."

"Dear me!" said Mary, unable to repress her sarcasm; "that accounts for
the curates like Mr. Crowse.  Divide your cleverness by ten, and the
quotient--dear me!--is able to take a degree.  But that only shows you
are ten times more idle than the others."

"Well, if I did pass, you would not want me to go into the Church?"

"That is not the question--what I want you to do.  You have a
conscience of your own, I suppose.  There! there is Mr. Lydgate.  I
must go and tell my uncle."

"Mary," said Fred, seizing her hand as she rose; "if you will not give
me some encouragement, I shall get worse instead of better."

"I will not give you any encouragement," said Mary, reddening.  "Your
friends would dislike it, and so would mine.  My father would think it
a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not
work!"

Fred was stung, and released her hand.  She walked to the door, but
there she turned and said: "Fred, you have always been so good, so
generous to me.  I am not ungrateful.  But never speak to me in that
way again."

"Very well," said Fred, sulkily, taking up his hat and whip.  His
complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white.  Like many a
plucked idle young gentleman, he was thoroughly in love, and with a
plain girl, who had no money!  But having Mr. Featherstone's land in
the background, and a persuasion that, let Mary say what she would, she
really did care for him, Fred was not utterly in despair.

When he got home, he gave four of the twenties to his mother, asking
her to keep them for him.  "I don't want to spend that money, mother.
I want it to pay a debt with.  So keep it safe away from my fingers."

"Bless you, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy.  She doted on her eldest son and
her youngest girl (a child of six), whom others thought her two
naughtiest children.  The mother's eyes are not always deceived in
their partiality: she at least can best judge who is the tender,
filial-hearted child.  And Fred was certainly very fond of his mother.
Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him
particularly anxious to take some security against his own liability to
spend the hundred pounds.  For the creditor to whom he owed a hundred
and sixty held a firmer security in the shape of a bill signed by
Mary's father.

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

completion: The chapter opens with Mr. Featherstone reading the letter from Mr. Bulstrode while Fred waits. When he's done reading it, he gives Fred some money - but not as much as Fred was hoping. Once he's finished his visit with his uncle, Fred goes to find Mary downstairs. They talk about Fred's lack of professional plans, now that he's dropped out of college, and Fred pouts a little. He's in love with her, and she knows it, but she's not willing to encourage him while he's mooching off his parents. When Fred gets home, for safekeeping he gives his mother eighty of the hundred pounds that Mr. Featherstone had given him. Turns out that big debt he owes is 160 pounds, and the co-signer is Mary Garth's father, who can't afford to pay it, either. Fred can't deal with the idea of getting Mary's family into debt.