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 his own force of resolution and propitiating what was just in the Baronet’s vexation. He had hit on a more ingenious mode of parrying than he was aware of. He had touched a motive of which Sir James was ashamed. The mass of his feeling about Dorothea’s marriage to Ladislaw was due partly to excusable prejudice, or even justifiable opinion, partly to a jealous repugnance hardly less in Ladislaw’s case than in Casaubon’s. He was convinced that the marriage was a fatal one for Dorothea. But amid that mass ran a vein of which he was too good and honourable a man to like the avowal even to himself: it was undeniable that the union of the two estates—Tipton and Freshitt—lying charmingly within a ring-fence, was a prospect that flattered him for his son and heir. Hence when Mr Brooke noddingly appealed to that motive, Sir James felt a sudden embarrassment; there was a stoppage in his throat; he even blushed. He had found more words than usual in the first jet of his anger, but Mr Brooke’s propitiation was more clogging to his tongue than Mr Cadwallader’s caustic hint.

But Celia was glad to have room for speech after her uncle’s suggestion of the marriage ceremony, and she said, though with as little eagerness of manner as if the question had turned on an invitation to dinner, “Do you mean that Dodo is going to be married directly, uncle?”

“In three weeks, you know,” said Mr Brooke, helplessly. “I can do nothing to hinder it, Cadwallader,” he added, turning for a little countenance toward the Rector, who said—

“I should not make any fuss about it. If she likes to be poor, that is her affair. Nobody would have said anything if she had married the young fellow because he was rich. Plenty of beneficed clergy are poorer than they will be. Here is Elinor,” continued the provoking husband; “she vexed her friends by marrying me: I had hardly a thousand a-year—I was a lout—nobody could see anything in me—my shoes were not the right cut—all the men wondered how a woman could like me. Upon my word, I must take Ladislaw’s part until I hear more harm of him.”

“Humphrey, that is all sophistry, and you know it,” said his wife. “Everything is all one—that is the beginning and end with you. As if you had not been a Cadwallader! Does any one suppose that I would have taken such a monster as you by any other name?”

“And a clergyman too,” observed Lady Chettam with approbation. “Elinor cannot be said to have descended below her rank. It is difficult to say what Mr Ladislaw is, eh, James?”

Sir James gave a small grunt, which was less respectful than his usual mode of answering his mother. Celia looked up at him like a thoughtful kitten.

“It must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!” said Mrs Cadwallader. “The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was it?—and then an old clo"