agnet; the cloud once
heaven-suffused, the magnet fatally compelling her to sway round to
him. She admired him still: his handsome air, his fine proportions, the
courtesy of his bending to Clara and touching of her hand, excused a
fanatical excess of admiration on the part of a woman in her youth, who
is never the anatomist of the hero's lordly graces. But now she admired
him piecemeal. When it came to the putting of him together, she did it
coldly. To compassionate him was her utmost warmth. Without conceiving
in him anything of the strange old monster of earth which had struck
the awakened girl's mind of Miss Middleton, Laetitia classed him with
other men; he was "one of them". And she did not bring her
disenchantment as a charge against him. She accused herself,
acknowledged the secret of the change to be, and her youthfulness was
dead:--otherwise could she have given him compassion, and not herself
have been carried on the flood of it? The compassion was fervent, and
pure too. She supposed he would supplicate; she saw that Clara
Middleton was pleasant with him only for what she expected of his
generosity. She grieved. Sir Willoughby was fortified by her sorrowful
gaze as he and Clara passed out together to the laboratory arm in arm.

Laetitia had to tell Vernon of the uselessness of his beating the house
and grounds for Crossjay. Dr. Middleton held him fast in discussion
upon an overnight's classical wrangle with Professor Crooklyn, which
was to be renewed that day. The Professor had appointed to call
expressly to renew it. "A fine scholar," said the Rev. Doctor, "but
crotchety, like all men who cannot stand their Port."

"I hear that he had a cold," Vernon remarked. "I hope the wine was
good, sir."

As when the foreman of a sentimental jury is commissioned to inform an
awful Bench exact in perspicuous English, of a verdict that must of
necessity be pronounced in favour of the hanging of the culprit, yet
would fain attenuate the crime of a palpable villain by a
recommendation to mercy, such foreman, standing in the attentive eye of
a master of grammatical construction, and feeling the weight of at
least three sentences on his brain, together with a prospect of
Judicial interrogation for the discovery of his precise meaning, is
oppressed, himself is put on trial, in turn, and he hesitates, he
recapitulates, the fear of involution leads him to be involved; as far
as a man so posted may, he on his own behalf appeals