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320 even Mr Thesiger, the rector of St. Peter's, had looked in for a short time, wishing to buy the carved table, and had rubbed elbows with Mr Bambridge and Mr Horrock. There was a wreath of Middlemarch ladies accommodated with seats round the large table in the dining-room, where Mr Borthrop Trumbull was mounted with desk and hammer; but the rows chiefly of masculine faces behind were often varied by incomings and outgoings both from the door and the large bow-window opening on to the lawn.

"Everybody" that day did not include Mr Bulstrode, whose health could not well endure crowds and draughts. But Mrs Bulstrode had particularly wished to have a certain picture—a Supper at Emmaus, attributed in the catalogue to Guido; and at the last moment before the day of the sale Mr Bulstrode had called at the office of the 'Pioneer,' of which he was now one of the proprietors, to beg of Mr Ladislaw as a great favour that he would obligingly use his remarkable knowledge of pictures on behalf of Mrs Bulstrode, and judge of the value of this particular painting—"if," added the scrupulously polite banker, attendance at the sale would not interfere with the arrangements for your departure, which I know is imminent."

This proviso might have sounded rather satiri-