. Tom Toller. »Mr. Thesiger never goes into extremes. He keeps to the truth
in what is evangelical. It is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke, who want to use
Dissenting hymn-books and that low kind of religion, who ever found Bulstrode to
their taste.«
    »I understand, Mr. Tyke is in great distress about him,« said Mrs. Hackbutt.
»And well he may be; they say the Bulstrodes have half kept the Tyke family.«
    »And of course it is a discredit to his doctrines,« said Mrs. Sprague, who
was elderly, and oldfashioned in her opinions. »People will not make a boast of
being methodistical in Middlemarch for a good while to come.«
    »I think we must not set down people's bad actions to their religion,« said
falcon-faced Mrs. Plymdale, who had been listening hitherto.
    »Oh, my dear, we are forgetting,« said Mrs. Sprague. »We ought not to be
talking of this before you.«
    »I am sure I have no reason to be partial,« said Mrs. Plymdale, colouring.
»It's true Mr. Plymdale has always been on good terms with Mr. Bulstrode, and
Harriet Vincy was my friend long before she married him. But I have always kept
my own opinions and told her where she was wrong, poor thing. Still, in point of
religion, I must say, Mr. Bulstrode might have done what he has, and worse, and
yet have been a man of no religion. I don't say that there has not been a little
too much of that - I like moderation myself. But truth is truth. The men tried
at the assizes are not all over-religious, I suppose.«
    »Well,« said Mrs. Hackbutt, wheeling adroitly, »all I can say is, that I
think she ought to separate from him.«
    »I can't say that,« said Mrs. Sprague. »She took him for better or worse,
you know.«
    »But worse can never mean finding out that your husband is fit for Newgate,«
said Mrs. Hackbutt. »Fancy living with such a man! I should expect to be
poisoned.«
    »Yes, I think myself it is an encouragement to crime if such men are to be
taken care of and waited on by good wives,« said Mrs. Tom Toller.
    »And a good wife poor Harriet has been,« said Mrs. Plymdale. »She
