Dorothea wondered a little, but felt that it would be indelicate just then to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon did not proffer, and she turned to the window to admire the view. The sun had lately pierced the gray, and the avenue of limes cast shadows.
“Shall we not walk in the garden now?” said Dorothea.
“And you would like to see the church, you know,” said Mr. Brooke. “It is a droll little church. And the village. It all lies in a nutshell. By the way, it will suit you, Dorothea; for the cottages are like a row of alms-houses—little gardens, gillyflowers, that sort of thing.”
“Yes, please,” said Dorothea, looking at Mr. Casaubon, “I should like to see all that.” She had got nothing from him more graphic about the Lowick cottages than that they were “not bad.”
They were soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest way to the church, Mr. Casaubon said. At the little gate leading into the churchyard there was a pause while Mr. Casaubon went to the parsonage close by to fetch a key. Celia, who had been hanging a little in the rear, came up presently, when she saw that Mr. Casaubon was gone away, and said in her easy staccato, which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of any malicious intent—
“Do you know, Dorothea, I saw someone quite young coming up one of the walks.”
“Is that astonishing, Celia?”
“There may be a young gardener, you know—why not?” said Mr. Brooke. “I told Casaubon he should change his gardener.”
“No, not a gardener,” said Celia; “a gentleman with a sketchbook. He had light-brown curls. I only saw his back. But he was quite young.”