, my love?« said Mr. Casaubon (he always said »my love« when
his manner was the coldest).
    »He has made up his mind to leave off wandering at once, and to give up his
dependence on your generosity. He means soon to go back to England, and work his
own way. I thought you would consider that a good sign,« said Dorothea, with an
appealing look into her husband's neutral face.
    »Did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he would addict
himself?«
    »No. But he said that he felt the danger which lay for him in your
generosity. Of course he will write to you about it. Do you not think better of
him for his resolve?«
    »I shall await his communication on the subject,« said Mr. Casaubon.
    »I told him I was sure that the thing you considered in all you did for him
was his own welfare. I remembered your goodness in what you said about him when
I first saw him at Lowick,« said Dorothea, putting her hand on her husband's.
    »I had a duty towards him,« said Mr. Casaubon, laying his other hand on
Dorothea's in conscientious acceptance of her caress, but with a glance which he
could not hinder from being uneasy. »The young man, I confess, is not otherwise
an object of interest to me, nor need we, I think, discuss his future course,
which it is not ours to determine beyond the limits which I have sufficiently
indicated.«
    Dorothea did not mention Will again.
 

                                    Book III

                               Waiting for Death

                                 Chapter XXIII

 »Your horses of the Sun,« he said,
 »And first-rate whip Apollo!
 Whate'er they be, I'll eat my head,
 But I will beat them hollow.«
 
Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though no such immaterial
burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted young gentleman for many hours
together, there were circumstances connected with this debt which made the
thought of it unusually importunate. The creditor was Mr. Bambridge, a
horse-dealer of the neighbourhood, whose company was much sought in Middlemarch
by young men understood to be »addicted to pleasure.« During the vacations Fred
had naturally required more amusements than he had ready money for, and Mr.
Bambridge had been accommodating enough not only to trust him for the hire of
horses and the accidental expense of ruining a fine hunter, but also to make a
small advance by which he might be