a lively addiction to the lowest prose. As for Rosamond, she was in the water-lily’s expanding wonderment at its own fuller life, and she too was spinning industriously at the mutual web. All this went on in the corner of the drawing-room where the piano stood, and subtle as it was, the light made it a sort of rainbow visible to many observers besides Mr. Farebrother. The certainty that Miss Vincy and Mr. Lydgate were engaged became general in Middlemarch without the aid of formal announcement.
Aunt Bulstrode was again stirred to anxiety; but this time she addressed herself to her brother, going to the warehouse expressly to avoid Mrs. Vincy’s volatility. His replies were not satisfactory.
“Walter, you never mean to tell me that you have allowed all this to go on without inquiry into Mr. Lydgate’s prospects?” said Mrs. Bulstrode, opening her eyes with wider gravity at her brother, who was in his peevish warehouse humor. “Think of this girl brought up in luxury—in too worldly a way, I am sorry to say—what will she do on a small income?”