Mr. Brooke held out towards the two girls a large colored sketch
of stony ground and trees, with a pool.

"I am no judge of these things," said Dorothea, not coldly, but with
an eager deprecation of the appeal to her. "You know, uncle, I never
see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised.
They are a language I do not understand. I suppose there is some
relation between pictures and nature which I am too ignorant to
feel--just as you see what a Greek sentence stands for which means
nothing to me." Dorothea looked up at Mr. Casaubon, who bowed
his head towards her, while Mr. Brooke said, smiling nonchalantly--

"Bless me, now, how different people are! But you had a bad style
of teaching, you know--else this is just the thing for girls--sketching,
fine art and so on. But you took to drawing plans; you don't
understand morbidezza, and that kind of thing. You will come
to my house, I hope, and I will show you what I did in this way,"
he continued, turning to young Ladislaw, who had to be recalled
from his preoccupation in observing Dorothea. Ladislaw had made up
his mind that she must be an unpleasant girl, since she was going
to marry Casaubon, and what she said of her stupidity about pictures
would have confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her.
As it was, he took her words for a covert judgment, and was certain
that she thought his sketch detestable. There was too much cleverness
in her apology: she was laughing both at her uncle and himself.
But what a voice! It was like the voice of a soul that had once lived
in an AEolian harp. This must be one of Nature's inconsistencies.
There could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon.
But he turned from her, and bowed his thanks for Mr. Brooke's invitation.