Chapter: "Though it be songe of old and yonge,
         That I sholde be to blame,
     Theyrs be the charge, that spoke so large
         In hurtynge of my name."
                           --The Not-Browne Mayde.


It was just after the Lords had thrown out the Reform Bill: that
explains how Mr. Cadwallader came to be walking on the slope of the
lawn near the great conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the "Times"
in his hands behind him, while he talked with a trout-fisher's
dispassionateness about the prospects of the country to Sir James
Chettam.  Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager Lady Chettam, and Celia were
sometimes seated on garden-chairs, sometimes walking to meet little
Arthur, who was being drawn in his chariot, and, as became the
infantine Bouddha, was sheltered by his sacred umbrella with handsome
silken fringe.

The ladies also talked politics, though more fitfully.  Mrs.
Cadwallader was strong on the intended creation of peers: she had it
for certain from her cousin that Truberry had gone over to the other
side entirely at the instigation of his wife, who had scented peerages
in the air from the very first introduction of the Reform question, and
would sign her soul away to take precedence of her younger sister, who
had married a baronet.  Lady Chettam thought that such conduct was very
reprehensible, and remembered that Mrs. Truberry's mother was a Miss
Walsingham of Melspring.  Celia confessed it was nicer to be "Lady"
than "Mrs.," and that Dodo never minded about precedence if she could
have her own way.  Mrs. Cadwallader held that it was a poor
satisfaction to take precedence when everybody about you knew that you
had not a drop of good blood in your veins; and Celia again, stopping
to look at Arthur, said, "It would be very nice, though, if he were a
Viscount--and his lordship's little tooth coming through!  He might
have been, if James had been an Earl."

"My dear Celia," said the Dowager, "James's title is worth far more
than any new earldom.  I never wished his father to be anything else
than Sir James."

"Oh, I only meant about Arthur's little tooth," said Celia,
comfortably.  "But see, here is my uncle coming."

She tripped off to meet her uncle, while Sir James and Mr. Cadwallader
came forward to make one group with the ladies.  Celia had slipped her
arm through her uncle's, and he patted her hand with a rather
melancholy "Well, my dear!"  As they approached, it was evident that
Mr. Brooke was looking dejected, but this was fully accounted for by
the state of politics; and as he was shaking hands all round without
more greeting than a "Well, you're all here, you know," the Rector
said, laughingly--

"Don't take the throwing out of the Bill so much to heart, Brooke;
you've got all the riff-raff of the country on your side."

"The Bill, eh? ah!" said Mr. Brooke, with a mild distractedness of
manner.  "Thrown out, you know, eh?  The Lords are going too far,
though.  They'll have to pull up.  Sad news, you know.  I mean, here at
home--sad news.  But you must not blame me, Chettam."

"What is the matter?" said Sir James.  "Not another gamekeeper shot, I
hope?  It's what I should expect, when a fellow like Trapping Bass is
let off so easily."

"Gamekeeper?  No. Let us go in; I can tell you all in the house, you
know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding at the Cadwalladers, to show that he
included them in his confidence.  "As to poachers like Trapping Bass,
you know, Chettam," he continued, as they were entering, "when you are
a magistrate, you'll not find it so easy to commit.  Severity is all
very well, but it's a great deal easier when you've got somebody to do
it for you.  You have a soft place in your heart yourself, you
know--you're not a Draco, a Jeffreys, that sort of thing."

Mr. Brooke was evidently in a state of nervous perturbation.  When he
had something painful to tell, it was usually his way to introduce it
among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that
would get a milder flavor by mixing.  He continued his chat with Sir
James about the poachers until they were all seated, and Mrs.
Cadwallader, impatient of this drivelling, said--

"I'm dying to know the sad news.  The gamekeeper is not shot: that is
settled.  What is it, then?"

"Well, it's a very trying thing, you know," said Mr. Brooke.  "I'm glad
you and the Rector are here; it's a family matter--but you will help
us all to bear it, Cadwallader.  I've got to break it to you, my dear."
Here Mr. Brooke looked at Celia--"You've no notion what it is, you
know.  And, Chettam, it will annoy you uncommonly--but, you see, you
have not been able to hinder it, any more than I have.  There's
something singular in things: they come round, you know."

"It must be about Dodo," said Celia, who had been used to think of her
sister as the dangerous part of the family machinery.  She had seated
herself on a low stool against her husband's knee.

"For God's sake let us hear what it is!" said Sir James.

"Well, you know, Chettam, I couldn't help Casaubon's will: it was a
sort of will to make things worse."

"Exactly," said Sir James, hastily.  "But _what_ is worse?"

"Dorothea is going to be married again, you know," said Mr. Brooke,
nodding towards Celia, who immediately looked up at her husband with a
frightened glance, and put her hand on his knee.  Sir James was almost
white with anger, but he did not speak.

"Merciful heaven!" said Mrs. Cadwallader.  "Not to _young_ Ladislaw?"

Mr. Brooke nodded, saying, "Yes; to Ladislaw," and then fell into a
prudential silence.

"You see, Humphrey!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her
husband.  "Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or
rather you will contradict me and be just as blind as ever.  _You_
supposed that the young gentleman was gone out of the country."

"So he might be, and yet come back," said the Rector, quietly

"When did you learn this?" said Sir James, not liking to hear any one
else speak, though finding it difficult to speak himself.

"Yesterday," said Mr. Brooke, meekly.  "I went to Lowick.  Dorothea
sent for me, you know.  It had come about quite suddenly--neither of
them had any idea two days ago--not any idea, you know.  There's
something singular in things.  But Dorothea is quite determined--it is
no use opposing.  I put it strongly to her.  I did my duty, Chettam.
But she can act as she likes, you know."

"It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year
ago," said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed
something strong to say.

"Really, James, that would have been very disagreeable," said Celia.

"Be reasonable, Chettam.  Look at the affair more quietly," said Mr.
Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by
anger.

"That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity--with any sense of
right--when the affair happens to be in his own family," said Sir
James, still in his white indignation.  "It is perfectly scandalous.
If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the
country at once, and never shown his face in it again.  However, I am
not surprised.  The day after Casaubon's funeral I said what ought to
be done.  But I was not listened to."

"You wanted what was impossible, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke.
"You wanted him shipped off.  I told you Ladislaw was not to be done as
we liked with: he had his ideas.  He was a remarkable fellow--I always
said he was a remarkable fellow."

"Yes," said Sir James, unable to repress a retort, "it is rather a pity
you formed that high opinion of him.  We are indebted to that for his
being lodged in this neighborhood.  We are indebted to that for seeing
a woman like Dorothea degrading herself by marrying him." Sir James
made little stoppages between his clauses, the words not coming easily.
"A man so marked out by her husband's will, that delicacy ought to have
forbidden her from seeing him again--who takes her out of her proper
rank--into poverty--has the meanness to accept such a sacrifice--has
always had an objectionable position--a bad origin--and, I _believe_,
is a man of little principle and light character.  That is my opinion."
Sir James ended emphatically, turning aside and crossing his leg.

"I pointed everything out to her," said Mr. Brooke, apologetically--"I
mean the poverty, and abandoning her position.  I said, 'My dear, you
don't know what it is to live on seven hundred a-year, and have no
carriage, and that kind of thing, and go amongst people who don't know
who you are.'  I put it strongly to her.  But I advise you to talk to
Dorothea herself.  The fact is, she has a dislike to Casaubon's
property.  You will hear what she says, you know."

"No--excuse me--I shall not," said Sir James, with more coolness.  "I
cannot bear to see her again; it is too painful.  It hurts me too much
that a woman like Dorothea should have done what is wrong."

"Be just, Chettam," said the easy, large-lipped Rector, who objected to
all this unnecessary discomfort.  "Mrs. Casaubon may be acting
imprudently: she is giving up a fortune for the sake of a man, and we
men have so poor an opinion of each other that we can hardly call a
woman wise who does that.  But I think you should not condemn it as a
wrong action, in the strict sense of the word."

"Yes, I do," answered Sir James.  "I think that Dorothea commits a
wrong action in marrying Ladislaw."

"My dear fellow, we are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it
is unpleasant to us," said the Rector, quietly.  Like many men who take
life easily, he had the knack of saying a home truth occasionally to
those who felt themselves virtuously out of temper.  Sir James took out
his handkerchief and began to bite the corner.

"It is very dreadful of Dodo, though," said Celia, wishing to justify
her husband.  "She said she _never would_ marry again--not anybody at
all."

"I heard her say the same thing myself," said Lady Chettam,
majestically, as if this were royal evidence.

"Oh, there is usually a silent exception in such cases," said Mrs.
Cadwallader.  "The only wonder to me is, that any of you are surprised.
You did nothing to hinder it.  If you would have had Lord Triton down
here to woo her with his philanthropy, he might have carried her off
before the year was over.  There was no safety in anything else.  Mr.
Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible.  He made
himself disagreeable--or it pleased God to make him so--and then he
dared her to contradict him.  It's the way to make any trumpery
tempting, to ticket it at a high price in that way."

"I don't know what you mean by wrong, Cadwallader," said Sir James,
still feeling a little stung, and turning round in his chair towards
the Rector.  "He's not a man we can take into the family.  At least, I
must speak for myself," he continued, carefully keeping his eyes off
Mr. Brooke.  "I suppose others will find his society too pleasant to
care about the propriety of the thing."

"Well, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke, good-humoredly, nursing his
leg, "I can't turn my back on Dorothea.  I must be a father to her up
to a certain point.  I said, 'My dear, I won't refuse to give you
away.'  I had spoken strongly before.  But I can cut off the entail,
you know.  It will cost money and be troublesome; but I can do it, you
know."

Mr. Brooke nodded at Sir James, and felt that he was both showing his
own force of resolution and propitiating what was just in the Baronet's
vexation.  He had hit on a more ingenious mode of parrying than he was
aware of.  He had touched a motive of which Sir James was ashamed.  The
mass of his feeling about Dorothea's marriage to Ladislaw was due
partly to excusable prejudice, or even justifiable opinion, partly to a
jealous repugnance hardly less in Ladislaw's case than in Casaubon's.
He was convinced that the marriage was a fatal one for Dorothea.  But
amid that mass ran a vein of which he was too good and honorable a man
to like the avowal even to himself: it was undeniable that the union of
the two estates--Tipton and Freshitt--lying charmingly within a
ring-fence, was a prospect that flattered him for his son and heir.
Hence when Mr. Brooke noddingly appealed to that motive, Sir James felt
a sudden embarrassment; there was a stoppage in his throat; he even
blushed.  He had found more words than usual in the first jet of his
anger, but Mr. Brooke's propitiation was more clogging to his tongue
than Mr. Cadwallader's caustic hint.

But Celia was glad to have room for speech after her uncle's suggestion
of the marriage ceremony, and she said, though with as little eagerness
of manner as if the question had turned on an invitation to dinner, "Do
you mean that Dodo is going to be married directly, uncle?"

"In three weeks, you know," said Mr. Brooke, helplessly.  "I can do
nothing to hinder it, Cadwallader," he added, turning for a little
countenance toward the Rector, who said--

"--I--should not make any fuss about it.  If she likes to be poor, that
is her affair.  Nobody would have said anything if she had married the
young fellow because he was rich.  Plenty of beneficed clergy are
poorer than they will be.  Here is Elinor," continued the provoking
husband; "she vexed her friends by me: I had hardly a thousand
a-year--I was a lout--nobody could see anything in me--my shoes were
not the right cut--all the men wondered how a woman could like me.
Upon my word, I must take Ladislaw's part until I hear more harm of
him."

"Humphrey, that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife.
"Everything is all one--that is the beginning and end with you.  As if
you had not been a Cadwallader!  Does any one suppose that I would have
taken such a monster as you by any other name?"

"And a clergyman too," observed Lady Chettam with approbation.  "Elinor
cannot be said to have descended below her rank.  It is difficult to
say what Mr. Ladislaw is, eh, James?"

Sir James gave a small grunt, which was less respectful than his usual
mode of answering his mother.  Celia looked up at him like a thoughtful
kitten.

"It must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!" said Mrs.
Cadwallader.  "The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a
rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was it?--and then an old
clo--"

"Nonsense, Elinor," said the Rector, rising.  "It is time for us to go."

"After all, he is a pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, rising too,
and wishing to make amends.  "He is like the fine old Crichley
portraits before the idiots came in."

"I'll go with you," said Mr. Brooke, starting up with alacrity.  "You
must all come and dine with me to-morrow, you know--eh, Celia, my dear?"

"You will, James--won't you?" said Celia, taking her husband's hand.

"Oh, of course, if you like," said Sir James, pulling down his
waistcoat, but unable yet to adjust his face good-humoredly. "That is
to say, if it is not to meet anybody else.':

"No, no, no," said Mr. Brooke, understanding the condition.  "Dorothea
would not come, you know, unless you had been to see her."

When Sir James and Celia were alone, she said, "Do you mind about my
having the carriage to go to Lowick, James?"

"What, now, directly?" he answered, with some surprise.

"Yes, it is very important," said Celia.

"Remember, Celia, I cannot see her," said Sir James.

"Not if she gave up marrying?"

"What is the use of saying that?--however, I'm going to the stables.
I'll tell Briggs to bring the carriage round."

Celia thought it was of great use, if not to say that, at least to take
a journey to Lowick in order to influence Dorothea's mind.  All through
their girlhood she had felt that she could act on her sister by a word
judiciously placed--by opening a little window for the daylight of her
own understanding to enter among the strange colored lamps by which
Dodo habitually saw.  And Celia the matron naturally felt more able to
advise her childless sister.  How could any one understand Dodo so well
as Celia did or love her so tenderly?

Dorothea, busy in her boudoir, felt a glow of pleasure at the sight of
her sister so soon after the revelation of her intended marriage.  She
had prefigured to herself, even with exaggeration, the disgust of her
friends, and she had even feared that Celia might be kept aloof from
her.

"O Kitty, I am delighted to see you!" said Dorothea, putting her hands
on Celia's shoulders, and beaming on her.  "I almost thought you would
not come to me."

"I have not brought Arthur, because I was in a hurry," said Celia, and
they sat down on two small chairs opposite each other, with their knees
touching.

"You know, Dodo, it is very bad," said Celia, in her placid guttural,
looking as prettily free from humors as possible.  "You have
disappointed us all so.  And I can't think that it ever _will_ be--you
never can go and live in that way.  And then there are all your plans!
You never can have thought of that.  James would have taken any trouble
for you, and you might have gone on all your life doing what you liked."

"On the contrary, dear," said Dorothea, "I never could do anything that
I liked.  I have never carried out any plan yet."

"Because you always wanted things that wouldn't do.  But other plans
would have come.  And how can you marry Mr. Ladislaw, that we none of
us ever thought you _could_ marry?  It shocks James so dreadfully.  And
then it is all so different from what you have always been.  You would
have Mr. Casaubon because he had such a great soul, and was so and
dismal and learned; and now, to think of marrying Mr. Ladislaw, who has
got no estate or anything.  I suppose it is because you must be making
yourself uncomfortable in some way or other."

Dorothea laughed.

"Well, it is very serious, Dodo," said Celia, becoming more impressive.
"How will you live? and you will go away among queer people.  And I
shall never see you--and you won't mind about little Arthur--and I
thought you always would--"

Celia's rare tears had got into her eyes, and the corners of her mouth
were agitated.

"Dear Celia," said Dorothea, with tender gravity, "if you don't ever
see me, it will not be my fault."

"Yes, it will," said Celia, with the same touching distortion of her
small features.  "How can I come to you or have you with me when James
can't bear it?--that is because he thinks it is not right--he thinks
you are so wrong, Dodo.  But you always were wrong: only I can't help
loving you.  And nobody can think where you will live: where can you
go?"

"I am going to London," said Dorothea.

"How can you always live in a street?  And you will be so poor.  I
could give you half my things, only how can I, when I never see you?"

"Bless you, Kitty," said Dorothea, with gentle warmth.  "Take comfort:
perhaps James will forgive me some time."

"But it would be much better if you would not be married," said Celia,
drying her eyes, and returning to her argument; "then there would be
nothing uncomfortable.  And you would not do what nobody thought you
could do.  James always said you ought to be a queen; but this is not
at all being like a queen.  You know what mistakes you have always been
making, Dodo, and this is another.  Nobody thinks Mr. Ladislaw a proper
husband for you.  And you _said you_ would never be married again."

"It is quite true that I might be a wiser person, Celia," said
Dorothea, "and that I might have done something better, if I had been
better.  But this is what I am going to do.  I have promised to marry
Mr. Ladislaw; and I am going to marry him."

The tone in which Dorothea said this was a note that Celia had long
learned to recognize.  She was silent a few moments, and then said, as
if she had dismissed all contest, "Is he very fond of you, Dodo?"

"I hope so.  I am very fond of him."

"That is nice," said Celia, comfortably.  "Only I rather you had such a
sort of husband as James is, with a place very near, that I could drive
to."

Dorothea smiled, and Celia looked rather meditative.  Presently she
said, "I cannot think how it all came about." Celia thought it would be
pleasant to hear the story.

"I dare say not," said-Dorothea, pinching her sister's chin.  "If you
knew how it came about, it would not seem wonderful to you."

"Can't you tell me?" said Celia, settling her arms cozily.

"No, dear, you would have to feel with me, else you would never know."

 Mr. Brooke, Sir James, Celia, and the Cadwalladers are all assembled at Sir James' home. Mr. Brooke has news to tell them of Dorothea and Will, and their impending marriage. Sir James is very angry, and objects strongly; he wants to try and protect Dorothea as he should have protected her from her marriage with Casaubon, though this time she does not need help. The others only consider Will's reputation and his money situation in evaluating the worth of the union; everyone still has a great deal of prejudice against Will, and much concern for Dorothea. Sir James sends Celia to go and talk her, but Dorothea is steadfast in her decision. Celia hopes for the best, though still, no one is very positive about the marriage.

