Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir
James Chettam's readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. He
came much oftener than Mr. Casaubon, and Dorothea ceased to find him
disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest; for he had
already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood's estimates,
and was charmingly docile. She proposed to build a couple of cottages,
and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then be
pulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old sites. Sir
James said "Exactly," and she bore the word remarkably well.
Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very
useful members of society under good feminine direction, if they were
fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to say
whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing
blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in
relation to her. But her life was just now full of hope and action:
she was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned books
from the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be a
little less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casaubon), all the while being
visited with conscientious questionings whether she were not exalting
these poor doings above measure and contemplating them with that
self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly.