“You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow,” Lady Gaunt said.  To see his wife and daughter suffering always put his lordship into a good humor.

“My sweet Blanche,” he said, “I am a gentleman, and never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindnesss.  I only wish to correct little faults in your character.  You women are too proud, and sadly lack humility, as Father Mole, I’m sure, would tell my Lady Steyne if he were here.  You musn’t give yourselves airs:  you must be meek and humble, my blessings.  For all Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-humored Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent—­even more innocent than herself.  Her husband’s character is not good, but it is as good as Bareacres’s, who has played a little and not payed a great deal, who cheated you out of the only legacy you ever had, and left you a pauper on my hands.  And Mrs. Crawley is not very well born; but she is not worse than Fanny’s illustrious ancestor, the first de la Jones.”

“The money which I brought into the family, sir,” Lady George cried out—­

“You purchased a contingent reversion with it,” the marquis said, darkly.  “If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honors; your little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides?  In the meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don’t give me any airs.  As for Mrs. Crawley’s character, I sha’n’t demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady, by even hinting that it even requires a defense.  You will be pleased to receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom I present in this house.  This house?” He broke out with a laugh.  “Who is the master of it, and what is it?  This temple of virtue belongs to me.  And if I invite all Newgate or all Bedlam here, by——­they shall be welcome.”

After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord Steyne treated his “Hareem” whenever symptoms of insubordination appeared in his household, the crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey.  Lady Gaunt wrote the invitation which his lordship required, and she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

GEORGE ELIOT.

PASSAGES FROM ADAM BEDE.

It was a wood of beeches and limes, with here and there a light, silver-stemmed birch—­just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs; you see their white sun-lit limbs gleaming athwart the boughs or peeping from behind the smooth-sweeping outline of a tall lime; you hear their soft liquid laughter—­but if you look with a too curious sacrilegious eye they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you believe that their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you from the topmost bough.  Not a grove with measured grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-shaped earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss—­paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen of the white-footed nymphs.