and customs were like at the time of the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1832. The character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent
minister, is an admirable study of the non-conformist of that
period. Esther's renunciation of a brilliant fortune for a
humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was quite in
accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life.
The scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the
action, covering about nine months, begins in 1832.


_I.--The Minister's Daughter_


The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the
old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire,
lived in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel
Yard.

He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study,
which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to
walk about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the
floor. His face looked old and worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell
from his bald crown and hung about his neck retained much of its
original auburn tint, and his large, brown short-sighted eyes were still
clear and bright. At the first glance, everyone thought him a very
odd-looking, rusty old man, and the free-school boys often hooted after
him, and called him "Revelations." But he was too short-sighted and too
absent from the world of small facts and petty impulses to notice those
who tittered at him.