Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. II, 1872.djvu/58

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CHAPTER XXV.

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care
But for another gives its ease
"And builds a heaven in hell's despair.


Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite.

W. Blake: Songs of Experience


Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect him, and when his uncle was not down-stairs: in that case she might be sitting alone in the wainscoted parlour. He left his horse in the yard to avoid making a noise on the gravel in front, and entered the parlour without other notice than the noise of the door-handle. Mary was in her usual corner, laughing over Mrs Piozzi's recollections of Johnson, and looked up with the fun still in her face. It gradually faded as she saw Fred approach her without speaking, and stand before her with his elbow on the mantel-