Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation.  Some times, when her uncle’s easy way of taking things did not happen to be exasperating, it was rather soothing.  She threw off her mantle and bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up her beautiful hands for a screen.  They were not thin hands, or small hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands.  She seemed to be holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and to think, which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had issued in crying and red eyelids.

She bethought herself now of the condemned criminal.  “What news have you brought about the sheep-stealer, uncle?”

“What, poor Bunch?—­well, it seems we can’t get him off—­he is to be hanged.”

Dorothea’s brow took an expression of reprobation and pity.

“Hanged, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, with a quiet nod.  “Poor Romilly! he would have helped us.  I knew Romilly.  Casaubon didn’t know Romilly.  He is a little buried in books, you know, Casaubon is.”

“When a man has great studies and is writing a great work, he must of course give up seeing much of the world.  How can he go about making acquaintances?”

“That’s true.  But a man mopes, you know.  I have always been a bachelor too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped; it was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything.  I never moped:  but I can see that Casaubon does, you know.  He wants a companion—­a companion, you know.”

“It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion,” said Dorothea, energetically.

“You like him, eh?” said Mr. Brooke, without showing any surprise, or other emotion.  “Well, now, I’ve known Casaubon ten years, ever since he came to Lowick.  But I never got anything out of him—­any ideas, you know.  However, he is a tiptop man and may be a bishop—­that kind of thing, you know, if Peel stays in.  And he has a very high opinion of you, my dear.”

Dorothea could not speak.

“The fact is, he has a very high opinion indeed of you.  And he speaks uncommonly well—­does Casaubon.  He has deferred to me, you not being of age.  In short, I have promised to speak to you, though I told him I thought there was not much chance.  I was bound to tell him that.  I said, my niece is very young, and that kind of thing.  But I didn’t think it necessary to go into everything.  However, the long and the short of it is, that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of marriage—­of marriage, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, with his explanatory nod.  “I thought it better to tell you, my dear.”

No one could have detected any anxiety in Mr. Brooke’s manner, but he did really wish to know something of his niece’s mind, that, if there were any need for advice, he might give it in time.  What feeling he, as a magistrate who had taken in so many ideas, could make room for, was unmixedly kind.  Since Dorothea did not speak immediately, he repeated, “I thought it better to tell you, my dear.”