It came very lightly indeed.  When Dorothea quitted Caleb and turned to meet them, it appeared that Mrs. Cadwallader had stepped across the park by the merest chance in the world, just to chat with Celia in a matronly way about the baby.  And so Mr. Brooke was coming back?  Delightful!—­coming back, it was to be hoped, quite cured of Parliamentary fever and pioneering.  Apropos of the “Pioneer”—­somebody had prophesied that it would soon be like a dying dolphin, and turn all colors for want of knowing how to help itself, because Mr. Brooke’s protege, the brilliant young Ladislaw, was gone or going.  Had Sir James heard that?

The three were walking along the gravel slowly, and Sir James, turning aside to whip a shrub, said he had heard something of that sort.

“All false!” said Mrs. Cadwallader.  “He is not gone, or going, apparently; the `Pioneer’ keeps its color, and Mr. Orlando Ladislaw is making a sad dark-blue scandal by warbling continually with your Mr. Lydgate’s wife, who they tell me is as pretty as pretty can be.  It seems nobody ever goes into the house without finding this young gentleman lying on the rug or warbling at the piano.  But the people in manufacturing towns are always disreputable.”

“You began by saying that one report was false, Mrs. Cadwallader, and I believe this is false too,” said Dorothea, with indignant energy; “at least, I feel sure it is a misrepresentation.  I will not hear any evil spoken of Mr. Ladislaw; he has already suffered too much injustice.”

Dorothea when thoroughly moved cared little what any one thought of her feelings; and even if she had been able to reflect, she would have held it petty to keep silence at injurious words about Will from fear of being herself misunderstood.  Her face was flushed and her lip trembled.

Sir James, glancing at her, repented of his stratagem; but Mrs. Cadwallader, equal to all occasions, spread the palms of her hands outward and said—­“Heaven grant it, my dear!—­I mean that all bad tales about anybody may be false.  But it is a pity that young Lydgate should have married one of these Middlemarch girls.  Considering he’s a son of somebody, he might have got a woman with good blood in her veins, and not too young, who would have put up with his profession.  There’s Clara Harfager, for instance, whose friends don’t know what to do with her; and she has a portion.  Then we might have had her among us.  However!—­it’s no use being wise for other people.  Where is Celia?  Pray let us go in.”

“I am going on immediately to Tipton,” said Dorothea, rather haughtily.  “Good-by.”

Sir James could say nothing as he accompanied her to the carriage.  He was altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance which had cost him some secret humiliation beforehand.