“Who is that youngster, Casaubon?”

They had come very near when Mr. Casaubon answered—­

“That is a young relative of mine, a second cousin:  the grandson, in fact,” he added, looking at Dorothea, “of the lady whose portrait you have been noticing, my aunt Julia.”

The young man had laid down his sketch-book and risen.  His bushy light-brown curls, as well as his youthfulness, identified him at once with Celia’s apparition.

“Dorothea, let me introduce to you my cousin, Mr. Ladislaw.  Will, this is Miss Brooke.”

The cousin was so close now, that, when he lifted his hat, Dorothea could see a pair of gray eves rather near together, a delicate irregular nose with a little ripple in it, and hair falling backward; but there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent, threatening aspect than belonged to the type of the grandmother’s miniature.  Young Ladislaw did not feel it necessary to smile, as if he were charmed with this introduction to his future second cousin and her relatives; but wore rather a pouting air of discontent.

“You are an artist, I see,” said Mr. Brooke, taking up the sketch-book and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion.

“No, I only sketch a little.  There is nothing fit to be seen there,” said young Ladislaw, coloring, perhaps with temper rather than modesty.

“Oh, come, this is a nice bit, now.  I did a little in this way myself at one time, you know.  Look here, now; this is what I call a nice thing, done with what we used to call brio.”  Mr. Brooke held out towards the two girls a large colored sketch of stony ground and trees, with a pool.

“I am no judge of these things,” said Dorothea, not coldly, but with an eager deprecation of the appeal to her.  “You know, uncle, I never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised.  They are a language I do not understand.  I suppose there is some relation between pictures and nature which I am too ignorant to feel—­just as you see what a Greek sentence stands for which means nothing to me.”  Dorothea looked up at Mr. Casaubon, who bowed his head towards her, while Mr. Brooke said, smiling nonchalantly—­

“Bless me, now, how different people are!  But you had a bad style of teaching, you know—­else this is just the thing for girls—­sketching, fine art and so on.  But you took to drawing plans; you don’t understand morbidezza, and that kind of thing.  You will come to my house, I hope, and I will show you what I did in this way,” he continued, turning to young Ladislaw, who had to be recalled from his preoccupation in observing Dorothea.  Ladislaw had made up his mind that she must be an unpleasant girl, since she was going to marry Casaubon, and what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her.  As it was, he took her words for a covert judgment, and was certain that she thought his sketch detestable.  There was too much cleverness in her apology:  she was laughing both at her uncle and himself.  But what a voice!  It was like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an AEolian harp.  This must be one of Nature’s inconsistencies.  There could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon.  But he turned from her, and bowed his thanks for Mr. Brooke’s invitation.