I have long
had in view, and as we go on I shall be able to indicate to you certain
principles of selection whereby you will, I trust, have an intelligent
participation in my purpose."

This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his memorable
interview with Lydgate, that Mr. Casaubon's original reluctance to let
Dorothea work with him had given place to the contrary disposition,
namely, to demand much interest and labor from her.

After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, "We will take the
volume up-stairs--and the pencil, if you please--and in case of
reading in the night, we can pursue this task. It is not wearisome to
you, I trust, Dorothea?"

"I prefer always reading what you like best to hear," said Dorothea,
who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself in
reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.

It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics in
Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband, with all his
jealousy and suspicion, had gathered implicit trust in the integrity of
her promises, and her power of devoting herself to her idea of the
right and best. Of late he had begun to feel that these qualities were
a peculiar possession for himself, and he wanted to engross them.

The reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young weariness had
slept soon and fast: she was awakened by a sense of light, which seemed
to her at first like a sudden vision of sunset after she had climbed a
steep hill: she opened her eyes and saw her husband wrapped in his warm
gown seating himself in the arm-chair near the fire-place where the
embers were still glowing. He had lit two candles, expecting that
Dorothea would awake, but not liking to rouse her by more direct means.

"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.

"I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here for a
time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up, and said, "You
would like me to read to you?"

"You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,
with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner. "I am
wakeful: my mind is remarkably lucid."

"I fear that the excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,
remembering Lydgate's cautions.

"No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy."
Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on the same
plan as she h