“Yes, I think myself it is an encouragement to crime if such men are to be taken care of and waited on by good wives,” said Mrs. Tom Toller.

“And a good wife poor Harriet has been,” said Mrs. Plymdale.  “She thinks her husband the first of men.  It’s true he has never denied her anything.”

“Well, we shall see what she will do,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.  “I suppose she knows nothing yet, poor creature.  I do hope and trust I shall not see her, for I should be frightened to death lest I should say anything about her husband.  Do you think any hint has reached her?”

“I should hardly think so,” said Mrs. Tom Toller.  “We hear that he is ill, and has never stirred out of the house since the meeting on Thursday; but she was with her girls at church yesterday, and they had new Tuscan bonnets.  Her own had a feather in it.  I have never seen that her religion made any difference in her dress.”

“She wears very neat patterns always,” said Mrs. Plymdale, a little stung.  “And that feather I know she got dyed a pale lavender on purpose to be consistent.  I must say it of Harriet that she wishes to do right.”

“As to her knowing what has happened, it can’t be kept from her long,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.  “The Vincys know, for Mr. Vincy was at the meeting.  It will he a great blow to him.  There is his daughter as well as his sister.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Sprague.  “Nobody supposes that Mr. Lydgate can go on holding up his head in Middlemarch, things look so black about the thousand pounds he took just at that man’s death.  It really makes one shudder.”

“Pride must have a fall,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.

“I am not so sorry for Rosamond Vincy that was as I am for her aunt,” said Mrs. Plymdale.  “She needed a lesson.”

“I suppose the Bulstrodes will go and live abroad somewhere,” said Mrs. Sprague.  “That is what is generally done when there is anything disgraceful in a family.”

“And a most deadly blow it will be to Harriet,” said Mrs. Plymdale.  “If ever a woman was crushed, she will be.  I pity her from my heart.  And with all her faults, few women are better.  From a girl she had the neatest ways, and was always good-hearted, and as open as the day.  You might look into her drawers when you would—­always the same.  And so she has brought up Kate and Ellen.  You may think how hard it will be for her to go among foreigners.”

“The doctor says that is what he should recommend the Lydgates to do,” said Mrs. Sprague.  “He says Lydgate ought to have kept among the French.”

“That would suit her well enough, I dare say,” said Mrs. Plymdale; “there is that kind of lightness about her.  But she got that from her mother; she never got it from her aunt Bulstrode, who always gave her good advice, and to my knowledge would rather have had her marry elsewhere.”