Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. IV, 1872.djvu/208

198 to be "found out" concerning them. Mrs Bulstrode was vindicated from any resemblance to her husband. Harriet's faults were her own.

"She has always been showy," said Mrs Hackbutt, making tea for a small party, "though she has got into the way of putting her religion forward, to conform to her husband; she has tried to hold her head up above Middlemarch by making it known that she invites clergymen and heaven-knows-who from Riverstone and those places."

"We can hardly blame her for that," said Mrs Sprague; "because few of the best people in the town cared to associate with Balstrode, and she must have somebody to sit down at her table."

"Mr Thesiger has always countenanced him," said Mrs Hackbutt. "I think he must be sorry now."

"But he was never fond of him in his heart—that every one knows," said Mrs Tom Toller. "Mr Thesiger never goes into extremes. He keeps to the truth in what is evangelical. It is only clergymen like Mr Tyke, who want to use Dissenting hymn-books and that low kind of religion, who ever found Bulstrode to their taste."

"I understand, Mr Tyke is in great distress about him," said Mrs Hackbutt. "And well he