young girl, and take the pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction.  What delightful companionship!  Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an odor of cupboard.  He talked of what he was interested in, or else he was silent and bowed with sad civility.  To Dorothea this was adorable genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence.  For she looked as reverently at Mr. Casaubon’s religious elevation above herself as she did at his intellect and learning.  He assented to her expressions of devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowed himself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his youth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on understanding, sympathy, and guidance.  On one—­only one—­of her favorite themes she was disappointed.  Mr. Casaubon apparently did not care about building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremely narrow accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of the ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard.  After he was gone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his; and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying conditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admitted wickedness of pagan despots.  Should she not urge these arguments on Mr. Casaubon when he came again?  But further reflection told her that she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he would not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure moments, as other women expected to occupy themselves with their dress and embroidery—­would not forbid it when—­Dorothea felt rather ashamed as she detected herself in these speculations.  But her uncle had been invited to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days:  was it reasonable to suppose that Mr. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Brooke’s society for its own sake, either with or without documents?

Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir James Chettam’s readiness to set on foot the desired improvements.  He came much oftener than Mr. Casaubon, and Dorothea ceased to find him disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest; for he had already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood’s estimates, and was charmingly docile.  She proposed to build a couple of cottages, and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then be pulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old sites.  Sir James said “Exactly,” and she bore the word remarkably well.