DANIEL DERONDA

I've been enjoying this novel for a week or so, pondering the many poetic passages, highlighting them as I read. So far, the plot is not particularly engaging -- just the story of a proud young woman, Gwendolyn Harleth, trying to decide among many suitors. But Eliot's utterly graceful writing is captivating, so the plot seems secondary to me, at least at this point. Gwendolyn has decided, it seems, to accept Mallinger Grandcourt's marriage proposal, but Grandcourt's butler, Lush, seems to have other ideas. He has just greeted a woman and her two young children at the station, and he appears to think her arrival will mean the wedding will never happen. 

Of course, I'm still wondering when Deronda will come back into the book, having disappeared for the last 150 pages.