Vigo should be written to,
and invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon:
it was not credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think
of living alone in the house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader
and secretary to royal personages, and in point of knowledge and
sentiments even Dorothea could have nothing to object to her.
Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go mad in
that house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We have all got
to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same
names as other people call them by. To be sure, for younger sons
and women who have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad:
they are taken care of then. But you must not run into that.
I dare say you are a little bored here with our good dowager;
but think what a bore you might become yourself to your fellow-creatures
if you were always playing tragedy queen and taking things sublimely.
Sitting alone in that library at Lowick you may fancy yourself
ruling the weather; you must get a few people round you who wouldn't
believe you if you told them. That is a good lowering medicine."
"I never called everything by the same name that all the people
about me did," said Dorothea, stoutly.
"But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader, "and that is a proof of sanity.
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