George Eliot: Middlemarch

BOOK I. MISS BROOKE. 5. CHAPTER V. (continued)

"There was no need to think long, uncle. I know of nothing to make me vacillate. If I changed my mind, it must be because of something important and entirely new to me."

"Ah!--then you have accepted him? Then Chettam has no chance? Has Chettam offended you--offended you, you know? What is it you don't like in Chettam?"

"There is nothing that I like in him," said Dorothea, rather impetuously.

Mr. Brooke threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one had thrown a light missile at him. Dorothea immediately felt some self-rebuke, and said--

"I mean in the light of a husband. He is very kind, I think--really very good about the cottages. A well-meaning man."

"But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies a little in our family. I had it myself--that love of knowledge, and going into everything--a little too much--it took me too far; though that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runs underground like the rivers in Greece, you know--it comes out in the sons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went a good deal into that, at one time. However, my dear, I have always said that people should do as they like in these things, up to a certain point. I couldn't, as your guardian, have consented to a bad match. But Casaubon stands well: his position is good. I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though, and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me."