 time, wishing to buy the carved
table, and had rubbed elbows with Mr. Bambridge and Mr. Horrock. There was a
wreath of Middlemarch ladies accommodated with seats round the large table in
the dining-room, where Mr. Borthrop Trumbull was mounted with desk and hammer;
but the rows chiefly of masculine faces behind were often varied by incomings
and outgoings both from the door and the large bow-window opening on to the
lawn.
    »Everybody« that day did not include Mr. Bulstrode, whose health could not
well endure crowds and draughts. But Mrs. Bulstrode had particularly wished to
have a certain picture - a Supper at Emmaus, attributed in the catalogue to
Guido; and at the last moment before the day of the sale Mr. Bulstrode had
called at the office of the Pioneer, of which he was now one of the proprietors,
to beg of Mr. Ladislaw as a great favour that he would obligingly use his
remarkable knowledge of pictures on behalf of Mrs. Bulstrode, and judge of the
value of this particular painting - »if,« added the scrupulously polite banker,
»attendance at the sale would not interfere with the arrangements for your
departure, which I know is imminent.«
    This proviso might have sounded rather satirically in Will's ear if he had
been in a mood to care about such satire. It referred to an understanding
entered into many weeks before with the proprietors of the paper, that he should
be at liberty any day he pleased to hand over the management to the sub-editor
whom he had been training; since he wished finally to quit Middlemarch. But
indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is
habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying
out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In
such states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning towards
miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be fulfilled, still - very
wonderful things have happened! Will did not confess this weakness to himself,
but he lingered. What was the use of going to London at that time of the year?
The Rugby men who would remember him were not there; and so far as political
writing was concerned, he would rather for a few weeks go on with the Pioneer.
At the present moment, however, when Mr. Bulstrode was speaking to him, he had
both a strengthened resolve to go and an equally strong resolve not to go till
he had once more seen Dorothea. Hence he replied that he had reasons for
deferring his departure a
