coach, relieving Mr. Bulstrode's eyes of an ugly black spot on the
landscape at Stone Court, but not relieving him of the dread that the
black spot might reappear and become inseparable even from the vision
of his hearth.

BOOK VI.

THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE.

CHAPTER LIV.

"Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira:
Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,
E cui saluta fa tremar lo core.

Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore,
E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:
Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore.

Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile
Nasee nel core a chi parlar la sente;
Ond' e beato chi prima la vide.
Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride,
Non si pub dicer, ne tener a mente,
Si e nuovo miracolo gentile."
--DANTE: la Vita Nuova.

By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were
scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr. Raffles had been a guest
worthy of finest incense, Dorothea had again taken up her abode at
Lowick Manor. After three months Freshitt had become rather
oppressive: to sit like a model for Saint Catherine looking rapturously
at Celia's baby would not do for many hours in the day, and to remain
in that momentous babe's presence with persistent disregard was a
course that could not have been tolerated in a childless sister.
Dorothea would have been capable of carrying baby joyfully for a mile
if there had been need, and of loving it the more tenderly for that
labor; but to an aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as
Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but to admire, his behavior is
apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of watching him exhaustible.
This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's
childless widowhood fell in quite prettily with the birth of little
Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke).

"Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having anything of her
own--children or anything!" said Celia to her husband. "And if she
had had a baby, it never could have been such a dear as Arthur. Could
it, James?

"Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of some
indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private opinion
as to the perfections of his first-born.

"No! just ima