Dorothea immediately felt
some self-rebuke, and said--
"I mean in the light of a husband. He is very kind, I think--really
very good about the cottages. A well-meaning man."
"But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies
a little in our family. I had it myself--that love of knowledge,
and going into everything--a little too much--it took me too far;
though that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line;
or it runs underground like the rivers in Greece, you know--it
comes out in the sons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went
a good deal into that, at one time. However, my dear, I have
always said that people should do as they like in these things,
up to a certain point. I couldn't, as your guardian, have consented
to a bad match. But Casaubon stands well: his position is good.
I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though, and Mrs. Cadwallader will
blame me."
That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened.
She attributed Dorothea's abstracted manner, and the evidence of
further crying since they had got home, to the temper she had been
in about Sir James Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not
to give further offence: having once said what she wanted to say,
Celia had no disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects.
It had been her nature when a child never to quarrel with any one--
only to observe with wonder that they quarrelled with her, and looked
like turkey-cocks; whereupon she was ready to play at cat's cradle
with them whenever they recovered themselves.
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