we must be humble and let smart
people push themselves before us."

Fred's spirit could not bear this: rising and looking at Mr.
Featherstone, he said, "Shall my mother and I leave the room, sir, that
you may be alone with your friends?"

"Sit down, I tell you," said old Featherstone, snappishly. "Stop where
you are. Good-by, Solomon," he added, trying to wield his stick again,
but failing now that he had reversed the handle. "Good-by, Mrs. Waule.
Don't you come again."

"I shall be down-stairs, Brother, whether or no," said Solomon. "I
shall do my duty, and it remains to be seen what the Almighty will
allow."

"Yes, in property going out of families," said Mrs. Waule, in
continuation,--"and where there's steady young men to carry on. But I
pity them who are not such, and I pity their mothers. Good-by, Brother
Peter."

"Remember, I'm the eldest after you, Brother, and prospered from the
first, just as you did, and have got land already by the name of
Featherstone," said Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as one
which might be suggested in the watches of the night. "But I bid you
good-by for the present."

Their exit was hastened by their seeing old Mr. Featherstone pull his
wig on each side and shut his eyes with his mouth-widening grimace, as
if he were determined to be deaf and blind.

None the less they came to Stone Court daily and sat below at the post
of duty, sometimes carrying on a slow dialogue in an undertone in which
the observation and response were so far apart, that any one hearing
them might have imagined himself listening to speaking automata, in
some doubt whether the ingenious mechanism would really work, or wind
itself up for a long time in order to stick and be silent. Solomon and
Jane would have been sorry to be quick: what that led to might be seen
on the other side of the wall in the person of Brother Jonah.

But their watch in the wainscoted parlor was sometimes varied by the
presence of other guests from far or near. Now that Peter Featherstone
was up-stairs, his property could be discussed with all that local
enlightenment to be found on the spot: some rural and Middlemarch
neighbors expressed much agreement with the family and sympathy with
their interest against the Vincys, and feminine visitors were even
moved to tears, in conversation with Mrs. Waule, when they recalled the
fact that they themselves had been disappointed in times past by
codicils and marriages for