Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. I, 1876.djvu/242



having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth showed a power of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was hardly a day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her, or prove by emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. His cousin Mrs Torrington was now doing the honours of his house, so that Mrs Davilow and Gwendolen could be invited to a large party at Diplow in which there were many witnesses how the host distinguished the dowerless beauty, and showed no solicitude about the heiress. The world—I mean Mr Gascoigne and all the families worth speaking of within visiting distance of Pennicote—felt an assurance on the subject which in the Rector's mind converted itself into a resolution to do his duty by his niece and see that the settle-