Rosamond was more severely criticised and less pitied, though she too, as one of the good old Vincy family who had always been known in Middlemarch, was regarded as a victim to marriage with an interloper.  The Vincys had their weaknesses, but then they lay on the surface:  there was never anything bad to be “found out” concerning them.  Mrs. Bulstrode was vindicated from any resemblance to her husband.  Harriet’s faults were her own.

“She has always been showy,” said Mrs. Hackbutt, making tea for a small party, “though she has got into the way of putting her religion forward, to conform to her husband; she has tried to hold her head up above Middlemarch by making it known that she invites clergymen and heaven-knows-who from Riverston and those places.”

“We can hardly blame her for that,” said Mrs. Sprague; “because few of the best people in the town cared to associate with Balstrode, and she must have somebody to sit down at her table.”

“Mr. Thesiger has always countenanced him,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.  “I think he must be sorry now.”

“But he was never fond of him in his heart—­that every one knows,” said Mrs. Tom Toller.  “Mr. Thesiger never goes into extremes.  He keeps to the truth in what is evangelical.  It is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke, who want to use Dissenting hymn-books and that low kind of religion, who ever found Bulstrode to their taste.”

“I understand, Mr. Tyke is in great distress about him,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.  “And well he may be:  they say the Bulstrodes have half kept the Tyke family.”

“And of coarse it is a discredit to his doctrines,” said Mrs. Sprague, who was elderly, and old-fashioned in her opinions.

“People will not make a boast of being methodistical in Middlemarch for a good while to come.”

“I think we must not set down people’s bad actions to their religion,” said falcon-faced Mrs. Plymdale, who had been listening hitherto.

“Oh, my dear, we are forgetting,” said Mrs. Sprague.  “We ought not to be talking of this before you.”

“I am sure I have no reason to be partial,” said Mrs. Plymdale, coloring.  “It’s true Mr. Plymdale has always been on good terms with Mr. Bulstrode, and Harriet Vincy was my friend long before she married him.  But I have always kept my own opinions and told her where she was wrong, poor thing.  Still, in point of religion, I must say, Mr. Bulstrode might have done what he has, and worse, and yet have been a man of no religion.  I don’t say that there has not been a little too much of that—­I like moderation myself.  But truth is truth.  The men tried at the assizes are not all over-religious, I suppose.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Hackbutt, wheeling adroitly, “all I can say is, that I think she ought to separate from him.”

“I can’t say that,” said Mrs. Sprague.  “She took him for better or worse, you know.”

“But `worse’ can never mean finding out that your husband is fit for Newgate,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.  “Fancy living with such a man!  I should expect to be poisoned.”