to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to heaven for my salad oil.  However, Casaubon has money enough; I must do him that justice.  As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings are three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant.  By the bye, before I go, my dear, I must speak to your Mrs. Carter about pastry.  I want to send my young cook to learn of her.  Poor people with four children, like us, you know, can’t afford to keep a good cook.  I have no doubt Mrs. Carter will oblige me.  Sir James’s cook is a perfect dragon.”

In less than an hour, Mrs. Cadwallader had circumvented Mrs. Carter and driven to Freshitt Hall, which was not far from her own parsonage, her husband being resident in Freshitt and keeping a curate in Tipton.

Sir James Chettam had returned from the short journey which had kept him absent for a couple of days, and had changed his dress, intending to ride over to Tipton Grange.  His horse was standing at the door when Mrs. Cadwallader drove up, and he immediately appeared there himself, whip in hand.  Lady Chettam had not yet returned, but Mrs. Cadwallader’s errand could not be despatched in the presence of grooms, so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by, to look at the new plants; and on coming to a contemplative stand, she said—­

“I have a great shock for you; I hope you are not so far gone in love as you pretended to be.”

It was of no use protesting, against Mrs. Cadwallader’s way of putting things.  But Sir James’s countenance changed a little.  He felt a vague alarm.

“I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all.  I accused him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the Liberal side, and he looked silly and never denied it—­talked about the independent line, and the usual nonsense.”

“Is that all?” said Sir James, much relieved.

“Why,” rejoined Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharper note, “you don’t mean to say that you would like him to turn public man in that way—­making a sort of political Cheap Jack of himself?”

“He might be dissuaded, I should think.  He would not like the expense.”

“That is what I told him.  He is vulnerable to reason there—­always a few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness.  Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it’s the safe side for madness to dip on.  And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we should not see what we are to see.”

“What?  Brooke standing for Middlemarch?”

“Worse than that.  I really feel a little responsible.  I always told you Miss Brooke would be such a fine match.  I knew there was a great deal of nonsense in her—­a flighty sort of Methodistical stuff.  But these things wear out of girls.  However, I am taken by surprise for once.”

“What do you mean, Mrs. Cadwallader?” said Sir James.  His fear lest Miss Brooke should have run away to join the Moravian Brethren, or some preposterous sect unknown to good society, was a little allayed by the knowledge that Mrs. Cadwallader always made the worst of things.  “What has happened to Miss Brooke?  Pray speak out.”