samond's romance turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, and
it was enough to enjoy his assured subjection. When he said, "Poor
devil!" she asked, with playful curiosity--

"Why so?"

"Why, what can a man do when he takes to adoring one of you mermaids?
He only neglects his work and runs up bills."

"I am sure you do not neglect your work. You are always at the
Hospital, or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor's
quarrel; and then at home you always want to pore over your microscope
and phials. Confess you like those things better than me."

"Haven't you ambition enough to wish that your husband should be
something better than a Middlemarch doctor?" said Lydgate, letting his
hands fall on to his wife's shoulders, and looking at her with
affectionate gravity. "I shall make you learn my favorite bit from an
old poet--

'Why should our pride make such a stir to be
And be forgot? What good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading and the worlds delight?'

What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,--and to write out
myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet."

"Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish you
to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch. You
cannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working. But we
cannot live like hermits. You are not discontented with me, Tertius?"

"No, dear, no. I am too entirely contented."

"But what did Mrs. Casaubon want to say to you?"

"Merely to ask about her husband's health. But I think she is going to
be splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give us two hundred
a-year."

CHAPTER XLIV.

I would not creep along the coast but steer
Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.

When Dorothea, walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New
Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs of
change in Mr. Casaubon's bodily condition beyond the mental sign of
anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was silent for a few
moments, wondering whether she had said or done anything to rouse this
new anxiety. Lydgate, not willing to let slip an opportunity of
furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say--

"I don't know whether your or Mr.--Casaubon's attention has been drawn
to the needs of our New Hospital. Circumstances have made it seem
rathe