to tell reasons she would rather be silent upon. I am sure her
reasons would do her honor."

He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorothea
had looked up at Mr. Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl
to whom he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a dried
bookworm towards fifty, except, indeed, in a religious sort of way,
as for a clergyman of some distinction.

However, since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversation
with Mr. Casaubon about the Vaudois clergy, Sir James betook
himself to Celia, and talked to her about her sister; spoke of a
house in town, and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London.
Away from her sister, Celia talked quite easily, and Sir James
said to himself that the second Miss Brooke was certainly very
agreeable as well as pretty, though not, as some people pretended,
more clever and sensible than the elder sister. He felt that he
had chosen the one who was in all respects the superior; and a man
naturally likes to look forward to having the best. He would
be the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it.



CHAPTER III.

"Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphael,
The affable archangel . . .
Eve
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With admiration, and deep muse, to hear