Which of
your uncles do you like best?"

"Oh,--my uncle Godwin, I think. He is a good-natured old fellow."

"You were constantly at his house at Quallingham, when you were a boy,
were you not? I should so like to see the old spot and everything you
were used to. Does he know you are going to be married?"

"No," said Lydgate, carelessly, turning in his chair and rubbing his
hair up.

"Do send him word of it, you naughty undutiful nephew. He will perhaps
ask you to take me to Quallingham; and then you could show me about the
grounds, and I could imagine you there when you were a boy. Remember,
you see me in my home, just as it has been since I was a child. It is
not fair that I should be so ignorant of yours. But perhaps you would
be a little ashamed of me. I forgot that."

Lydgate smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted the suggestion that
the proud pleasure of showing so charming a bride was worth some
trouble. And now he came to think of it, he would like to see the old
spots with Rosamond.

"I will write to him, then. But my cousins are bores."

It seemed magnificent to Rosamond to be able to speak so slightingly of
a baronet's family, and she felt much contentment in the prospect of
being able to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.

But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later, by saying--

"I hope your uncle Sir Godwin will not look down on Rosy, Mr. Lydgate.
I should think he would do something handsome. A thousand or two can
be nothing to a baronet."

"Mamma!" said Rosamond, blushing deeply; and Lydgate pitied her so much
that he remained silent and went to the other end of the room to
examine a print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded. Mamma had a
little filial lecture afterwards, and was docile as usual. But
Rosamond reflected that if any of those high-bred cousins who were
bores, should be induced to visit Middlemarch, they would see many
things in her own family which might shock them. Hence it seemed
desirable that Lydgate should by-and-by get some first-rate position
elsewhere than in Middlemarch; and this could hardly be difficult in
the case of a man who had a titled uncle and could make discoveries.
Lydgate, you perceive, had talked fervidly to Rosamond of his hopes as
to the highest uses of his life, and had found it delightful to be
listened to by a creature who would bring him the sweet furtherance of
satisfying affection--beauty--repose--such he