“I’ll go with you,” said Mr. Brooke, starting up with alacrity. “You must all come and dine with me tomorrow, you know—eh, Celia, my dear?”
“You will, James—won’t you?” said Celia, taking her husband’s hand.
“Oh, of course, if you like,” said Sir James, pulling down his waistcoat, but unable yet to adjust his face good-humoredly. “That is to say, if it is not to meet anybody else.”
“No, no, no,” said Mr. Brooke, understanding the condition. “Dorothea would not come, you know, unless you had been to see her.”
When Sir James and Celia were alone, she said, “Do you mind about my having the carriage to go to Lowick, James?”
“What, now, directly?” he answered, with some surprise.
“Yes, it is very important,” said Celia.
“Remember, Celia, I cannot see her,” said Sir James.
“Not if she gave up marrying?”
“What is the use of saying that?—however, I’m going to the stables. I’ll tell Briggs to bring the carriage round.”
Celia thought it was of great use, if not to say that, at least to take a journey to Lowick in order to influence Dorothea’s mind. All through their girlhood she had felt that she could act on her sister by a word judiciously placed—by opening a little window for the daylight of her own understanding to enter among the strange colored lamps by which Dodo habitually saw. And Celia the matron naturally felt more able to advise her childless sister. How could anyone understand Dodo so well as Celia did or love her so tenderly?