Herodotus, who also, in telling what had been, thought it well to take a woman’s lot for his starting-point; though Io, as a maiden apparently beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, who had excellent taste in costume, with that nymph-like figure and pure blindness which give the largest range to choice in the flow and color of drapery.  But these things made only part of her charm.  She was admitted to be the flower of Mrs. Lemon’s school, the chief school in the county, where the teaching included all that was demanded in the accomplished female—­even to extras, such as the getting in and out of a carriage.  Mrs. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy as an example:  no pupil, she said, exceeded that young lady for mental acquisition and propriety of speech, while her musical execution was quite exceptional.  We cannot help the way in which people speak of us, and probably if Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet or Imogen, these heroines would not have seemed poetical.  The first vision of Rosamond would have been enough with most judges to dispel any prejudice excited by Mrs. Lemon’s praise.

Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch without having that agreeable vision, or even without making the acquaintance of the Vincy family; for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice he had paid something to enter on, had not been their doctor (Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering system adopted by him), he had many patients among their connections and acquaintances.  For who of any consequence in Middlemarch was not connected or at least acquainted with the Vincys?  They were old manufacturers, and had kept a good house for three generations, in which there had naturally been much intermarrying with neighbors more or less decidedly genteel.  Mr. Vincy’s sister had made a wealthy match in accepting Mr. Bulstrode, who, however, as a man not born in the town, and altogether of dimly known origin, was considered to have done well in uniting himself with a real Middlemarch family; on the other hand, Mr. Vincy had descended a little, having taken an innkeeper’s daughter.  But on this side too there was a cheering sense of money; for Mrs. Vincy’s sister had been second wife to rich old Mr. Featherstone, and had died childless years ago, so that her nephews and nieces might be supposed to touch the affections of the widower.  And it happened that Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Featherstone, two of Peacock’s most important patients, had, from different causes, given an especially good reception to his successor, who had raised some partisanship as well as discussion.  Mr. Wrench, medical attendant to the Vincy family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of Lydgate’s professional discretion, and there was no report about him which was not retailed at the Vincys’, where visitors were frequent.  Mr. Vincy was more inclined to general good-fellowship