1 Middlemarchthat nothing then invited him so strongly as the presence
of Dorothea.
Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, how-
ever, for Will had never been asked to go to Lowick. Mr.
Brooke, indeed, confident of doing everything agreeable
which Casaubon, poor fellow, was too much absorbed to
think of, had arranged to bring Ladislaw to Lowick several
times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere
on every opportunity as ‘a young relative of Casaubon’s’).
And though Will had not seen Dorothea alone, their inter-
views had been enough to restore her former sense of young
companionship with one who was cleverer than herself, yet
seemed ready to be swayed by her. Poor Dorothea before
her marriage had never found much room in other minds
for what she cared most to say; and she had not, as we know,
enjoyed her husband’s superior instruction so much as she
had expected. If she spoke with any keenness of interest to
Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of patience as if she
had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to him
from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly
what ancient sects or personages had held similar ideas, as
if there were too much of that sort in stock already; at other
times he would inform her that she was mistaken, and reas-
sert what her remark had questioned.
But Will Ladislaw always seemed to see more in what
she said than she herself saw. Dorothea had little vanity,
but she had the ardent woman’s need to rule beneficently
by making the joy of another soul. Hence the mere chance
of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in the