She was going to have room for the energies which stirred uneasily
under the dimness and pressure of her own ignorance and the petty
peremptoriness of the world's habits.
Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties;
now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mind
that she could reverence. This hope was not unmixed with the glow
of proud delight--the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen
by the man whom her admiration had chosen. All Dorothea's passion
was transfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life;
the radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object
that came within its level. The impetus with which inclination
became resolution was heightened by those little events of the day
which had roused her discontent with the actual conditions of
her life.
After dinner, when Celia was playing an "air, with variations,"
a small kind of tinkling which symbolized the aesthetic part of the
young ladies' education, Dorothea went up to her room to answer
Mr. Casaubon's letter. Why should she defer the answer? She wrote
it over three times, not because she wished to change the wording,
but because her hand was unusually uncertain, and she could not bear
that Mr. Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible.
She piqued herself on writing a hand in which each letter was
distinguishable without any large range of conjecture, and she meant
to make much use of this accomplishment, to save Mr.
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