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 “What? why, his upper lip; see how he is drawing it down, as if he meant to make a face. Isn’t it wonderful! He may have his little thoughts. I wish nurse were here. Do look at him.”

A large tear which had been for some time gathering, rolled down Dorothea’s cheek as she looked up and tried to smile.

“Don’t be sad, Dodo; kiss baby. What are you brooding over so? I am sure you did everything, and a great deal too much. You should be happy now.”

“I wonder if Sir James would drive me to Lowick. I want to look over everything—to see if there were any words written for me.”

“You are not to go till Mr Lydgate says you may go. And he has not said so yet (here you are, nurse; take baby and walk up and down the gallery). Besides, you have got a wrong notion in your head as usual, Dodo—I can see that: it vexes me.”

“Where am I wrong, Kitty?” said Dorothea, quite meekly. She was almost ready now to think Celia wiser than herself, and was really wondering with some fear what her wrong notion was. Celia felt her advantage, and was determined to use it. None of them knew Dodo as well as she did, or knew how to manage her. Since Celia’s baby was born, she had had a new sense of her mental solidity and calm wisdom. It seemed clear that where there was a baby, things were right enough, and that error, in general, was a mere lack of that central poising force.

“I can see what you are thinking of as well as can be, Dodo,” said Celia. “You are wanting to find out if there is anything uncomfortable for you to do now, only because Mr Casaubon wished it. As if you had not been uncomfortable enough before. And he doesn’t deserve it, and you will find that out. He has behaved very badly. James is as angry with him as can be. And I had better tell you, to prepare you.”

“Celia,” said Dorothea, entreatingly, “you distress me. Tell me at once what you mean.” It glanced through her mind that Mr Casaubon had left the property away from her—which would not be so very distressing.

“Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all to go away from you if you married—I mean"

“That is of no consequence,” said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.

“But if you married Mr Ladislaw, not anybody else,” Celia went on with persevering quietude. “Of course that is of no consequence in one way—you never would marry Mr Ladislaw; but that only makes it worse of Mr Casaubon.”

The blood rushed to Dorothea’s face and neck painfully. But Celia was administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact. It was taking up notions that had done Dodo’s health so much harm. So she went on in her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on baby’s robes.

“James says so. He says it is abominable, and not like a gentle-