“Where am I wrong, Kitty?” said Dorothea, quite meekly.  She was almost ready now to think Celia wiser than herself, and was really wondering with some fear what her wrong notion was.  Celia felt her advantage, and was determined to use it.  None of them knew Dodo as well as she did, or knew how to manage her.  Since Celia’s baby was born, she had had a new sense of her mental solidity and calm wisdom.  It seemed clear that where there was a baby, things were right enough, and that error, in general, was a mere lack of that central poising force.

“I can see what you are thinking of as well as can be, Dodo,” said Celia.  “You are wanting to find out if there is anything uncomfortable for you to do now, only because Mr. Casaubon wished it.  As if you had not been uncomfortable enough before.  And he doesn’t deserve it, and you will find that out.  He has behaved very badly.  James is as angry with him as can be.  And I had better tell you, to prepare you.”

“Celia,” said Dorothea, entreatingly, “you distress me.  Tell me at once what you mean.”  It glanced through her mind that’ Mr. Casaubon had left the property away from her—­which would not be so very distressing.

“Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all to go away from you if you married—­I mean—­”

“That is of no consequence,” said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.

“But if you married Mr. Ladislaw, not anybody else,” Celia went on with persevering quietude.  “Of course that is of no consequence in one way—­you never would marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only makes it worse of Mr. Casaubon.”

The blood rushed to Dorothea’s face and neck painfully.  But Celia was administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact.  It was taking up notions that had done Dodo’s health so much harm.  So she went on in her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on baby’s robes.

“James says so.  He says it is abominable, and not like a gentleman.  And there never was a better judge than James.  It is as if Mr. Casaubon wanted to make people believe that you would wish to marry Mr. Ladislaw—­which is ridiculous.  Only James says it was to hinder Mr. Ladislaw from wanting to marry you for your money—­ just as if he ever would think of making you an offer.  Mrs. Cadwallader said you might as well marry an Italian with white mice!  But I must just go and look at baby,” Celia added, without the least change of tone, throwing a light shawl over her, and tripping away.

Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself back helplessly in her chair.  She might have compared her experience at that moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life was taking on a new form that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in which memory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.  Everything was changing its aspect:  her husband’s conduct, her own duteous feeling towards him, every struggle