Middlemarch | Page 5

the elder sister, will
never wear them?"

"Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets to keep
you in countenance. If I were to put on such a necklace as that, I should
feel as if I had been pirouetting. The world would go round with me,
and I should not know how to walk."
Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. "It would be a little
tight for your neck; something to lie down and hang would suit you
better," she said, with some satisfaction. The complete unfitness of the
necklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia happier in
taking it. She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed a fine
emerald with diamonds, and just then the sun passing beyond a cloud
sent a bright gleam over the table.
"How very beautiful these gems are!" said Dorothea, under a new
current of feeling, as sudden as the gleam. "It is strange how deeply
colors seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason
why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John.
They look like fragments of heaven. I think that emerald is more
beautiful than any of them."
"And there is a bracelet to match it," said Celia. "We did not notice this
at first."
"They are lovely," said Dorothea, slipping the ring and bracelet on her
finely turned finger and wrist, and holding them towards the window
on a level with her eyes. All the while her thought was trying to justify
her delight in the colors by merging them in her mystic religious joy.
"You would like those, Dorothea," said Celia, rather falteringly,
beginning to think with wonder that her sister showed some weakness,
and also that emeralds would suit her own complexion even better than
purple amethysts. "You must keep that ring and bracelet--if nothing
else. But see, these agates are very pretty and quiet."
"Yes! I will keep these--this ring and bracelet," said Dorothea. Then,
letting her hand fall on the table, she said in another tone--"Yet what
miserable men find such things, and work at them, and sell them!" She
paused again, and Celia thought that her sister was going to renounce

the ornaments, as in consistency she ought to do.
"Yes, dear, I will keep these," said Dorothea, decidedly. "But take all
the rest away, and the casket."
She took up her pencil without removing the jewels, and still looking at
them. She thought of often having them by her, to feed her eye at these
little fountains of pure color.
"Shall you wear them in company?" said Celia, who was watching her
with real curiosity as to what she would do.
Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginative
adornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keen
discernment, which was not without a scorching quality. If Miss
Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of
inward fire.
"Perhaps," she said, rather haughtily. "I cannot tell to what level I may
sink."
Celia blushed, and was unhappy: she saw that she had offended her
sister, and dared not say even anything pretty about the gift of the
ornaments which she put back into the box and carried away. Dorothea
too was unhappy, as she went on with her plan-drawing, questioning
the purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended
with that little explosion.
Celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the wrong:
it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have asked that
question, and she repeated to herself that Dorothea was inconsistent:
either she should have taken her full share of the jewels, or, after what
she had said, she should have renounced them altogether.
"I am sure--at least, I trust," thought Celia, "that the wearing of a
necklace will not interfere with my prayers. And I do not see that I
should be bound by Dorothea's opinions now we are going into society,
though of course she herself ought to be bound by them. But Dorothea

is not always consistent."
Thus Celia, mutely bending over her tapestry, until she heard her sister
calling her.
"Here, Kitty, come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great
architect, if I have not got incompatible stairs and fireplaces."
As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against her
sister's arm caressingly. Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw that
she had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned her. Since they could
remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude
of Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger had always worn
a yoke; but is there