further remark upon it. So Dorothea had waited.

"What is that, my love?" said Mr Casaubon (he always said "my love"
when his manner was the coldest).

"He has made up his mind to leave off wandering at once, and to give up
his dependence on your generosity. He means soon to go back to
England, and work his own way. I thought you would consider that a
good sign," said Dorothea, with an appealing look into her husband's
neutral face.

"Did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he would
addict himself?"

"No. But he said that he felt the danger which lay for him in your
generosity. Of course he will write to you about it. Do you not think
better of him for his resolve?"

"I shall await his communication on the subject," said Mr. Casaubon.

"I told him I was sure that the thing you considered in all you did for
him was his own welfare. I remembered your goodness in what you said
about him when I first saw him at Lowick," said Dorothea, putting her
hand on her husband's.

"I had a duty towards him," said Mr. Casaubon, laying his other hand on
Dorothea's in conscientious acceptance of her caress, but with a glance
which he could not hinder from being uneasy. "The young man, I
confess, is not otherwise an object of interest to me, nor need we, I
think, discuss his future course, which it is not ours to determine
beyond the limits which I have sufficiently indicated." Dorothea did
not mention Will again.

BOOK III.

WAITING FOR DEATH.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Your horses of the Sun," he said,
"And first-rate whip Apollo!
Whate'er they be, I'll eat my head,
But I will beat them hollow."

Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though no such
immaterial burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted young gentleman
for many hours together, there were circumstances connected with this
debt which made the thought of it unusually importunate. The creditor
was Mr. Bambridge a horse-dealer of the neighborhood, whose company was
much sought in Middlemarch by young men understood to be "addicted to
pleasure." During the vacations Fred had naturally required more
amusements than he had ready money for, and Mr. Bambridge had been
accommodating enough not only to trust him for the hire of horses and
the accidental expense of ruining a fine hunter, but also to make a
small advance by which he might be able to meet some losses at
billiards. The total debt w