To mercy, pity, peace, and love All pray in their distress, And to these virtues of delight, Return their thankfulness.
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For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face; And Love, the human form divine; And Peace, the human dress.
Some days later, Lydgate was riding to Lowick Manor, in consequence of a summons from Dorothea.
The summons had not been unexpected, since it had followed a letter from Mr. Bulstrode, in which he stated that he had resumed his arrangements for quitting Middlemarch, and must remind Lydgate of his previous communications about the Hospital, to the purport of which he still adhered.
It had been his duty, before taking further steps, to reopen the subject with Mrs. Casaubon, who now wished, as before, to discuss the question with Lydgate.
“Your views may possibly have undergone some change,” wrote Mr. Bulstrode; “but, in that case also, it is desirable that you should lay them before her.”
Dorothea awaited his arrival with eager interest. Though, in deference to her masculine advisers, she had refrained from what Sir James had called “interfering in this Bulstrode business,” the hardship of Lydgate’s position was continually in her mind, and when