silently while she held her darling's hand. He rose immediately, and
turning his back on the company while he said to her in an
undertone,--"Don't give way, Lucy; don't make a fool of yourself, my
dear, before these people," he added in his usual loud voice--"Go and
order the phaeton, Fred; I have no time to waste."

Mary Garth had before this been getting ready to go home with her
father. She met Fred in the hall, and now for the first time had the
courage to look at him. He had that withered sort of paleness which
will sometimes come on young faces, and his hand was very cold when she
shook it. Mary too was agitated; she was conscious that fatally,
without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to
Fred's lot.

"Good-by," she said, with affectionate sadness. "Be brave, Fred. I do
believe you are better without the money. What was the good of it to
Mr. Featherstone?"

"That's all very fine," said Fred, pettishly. "What is a fellow to do?
I must go into the Church now." (He knew that this would vex Mary:
very well; then she must tell him what else he could do.) "And I
thought I should be able to pay your father at once and make everything
right. And you have not even a hundred pounds left you. What shall
you do now, Mary?"

"Take another situation, of course, as soon as I can get one. My
father has enough to do to keep the rest, without me. Good-by."

In a very short time Stone Court was cleared of well-brewed
Featherstones and other long-accustomed visitors. Another stranger had
been brought to settle in the neighborhood of Middlemarch, but in the
case of Mr. Rigg Featherstone there was more discontent with immediate
visible consequences than speculation as to the effect which his
presence might have in the future. No soul was prophetic enough to
have any foreboding as to what might appear on the trial of Joshua Rigg.

And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating a low
subject. Historical parallels are remarkably efficient in this way.
The chief objection to them is, that the diligent narrator may lack
space, or (what is often the same thing) may not be able to think of
them with any degree of particularity, though he may have a
philosophical confidence that if known they would be illustrative. It
seems an easier and shorter way to dignity, to observe that--since
there never was a true story which could not be told in parables, where
you might put a monkey f