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 and purifies him. He wakes her up and gets her out of her dourness. I am afraid,' he added with a sigh, 'that you will like him the better of the two...And here we are in Blandford Square. Driver! the small brick house; there's a woman selling lavender in front of it.'

She felt a certain pride in arriving on Sears Ripley's arm. He was so poised, so intelligent, and in a very superior way so handsome. She sat upon a low divan at one end of the small, flat drawing-room, and, as she chatted about her journeys upon the Continent with two small Jewish brothers, she watched him engaging the clever and obviously versatile Mr. Lewes in philosophical dispute. Marian Evans, her heavy chin cupped in a white hand dotted with freckles, eagerly leaned her great leonine head towards the dispute. She offered no comment, but nodded wisely, and her deep and expressive eyes glowed with excitement when Lewes began to get the better of his opponent.

Ripley caught her eye, 'Come, Mrs. Lewes, won't you help me out? Your husband is giving me the worst of it.'

She pulled herself together and raised her huge chin, assuming for the moment the posture of a singer about to sing, then drooping with an almost childish artlessness began to talk rapidly in so low a voice even the two men close to her were obliged to bend their heads and Lanice could not hear the tone of her voice.

'And now,' said the littlest and most Hebraic of the