in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony;
or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other
great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure;
but an amiable handsome baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks
even when she expressed uncertainty,--how could he affect her as a
lover? The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband
was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.

These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke
to be all the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing
some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces.
But he himself dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely
to be available for such a position, that he allowed himself to be
dissuaded by Dorothea's objections, and was in this case brave enough
to defy the world--that is to say, Mrs. Cadwallader the Rector's wife,
and the small group of gentry with whom he visited in the northeast corner
of Loamshire. So Miss Brooke presided in her uncle's household, and
did not at all dislike her new authority, with the homage that belonged
to it.

Sir James Chettam was going to dine at the Grange to-day with
another gentleman whom the girls had never seen, and about whom
Dorothea felt some venerating expectation. This was the Reverend
Edward Casaubon, noted in the county as a man of profound learning,
understood for many years to be engaged on a great work concerning
religious history; also as a man of wealth enough to give lustre
to his piety, and having views of his own which were to be more
clearly ascertained on the publication of his book. His very name
carried an impressiveness hardly to be measured without a precise
chronology of scholarship.