and mixture went on in old England as we find in older Herodotus,
who also, in telling what had been, thought it well to take a woman's
lot for his starting-point; though Io, as a maiden apparently
beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke,
and in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy,
who had excellent taste in costume, with that nymph-like figure
and pure blindness which give the largest range to choice in the flow
and color of drapery. But these things made only part of her charm.
She was admitted to be the flower of Mrs. Lemon's school,
the chief school in the county, where the teaching included all
that was demanded in the accomplished female--even to extras,
such as the getting in and out of a carriage. Mrs. Lemon herself
had always held up Miss Vincy as an example: no pupil, she said,
exceeded that young lady for mental acquisition and propriety
of speech, while her musical execution was quite exceptional.
We cannot help the way in which people speak of us, and probably if
Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet or Imogen, these heroines
would not have seemed poetical. The first vision of Rosamond would
have been enough with most judges to dispel any prejudice excited by
Mrs. Lemon's praise.

Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch without having that agreeable
vision, or even without making the acquaintance of the Vincy family;
for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice he had paid something to enter on,
had not been their doctor (Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering system
adopted by him), he had many patients among their connections
and acquaintances. For who of any consequence in Middlemarch was
not connected or at least acquainted with the Vincys? They were
old manufacturers, and had kept a good house for three generations,
in which there had naturally been much intermarrying with neighbors