 Book 1 Chapter 9 of the Mill on the Floss. This is a Liberox recording. All Liberox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Liberox.org. Recording by Daisy55. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott. Book 1. Boy and Girl. Chapter 9. 2. Garland First. While the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occupying her father's mind, she herself was tasting only the bitterness of the present. Childhood has no forebodings, but then it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow. The fact was, the day had begun here with Maggie. The pleasure of having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to Garland First, where she would hear Uncle Poole's musical box, had been married as early as 11 o'clock by the advent of the hairdresser from St. Org's, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he had found her hair, holding a one-jagged lock after another and saying, See here, toot, toot, toot, in a tone of mingle, disgust, and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was equivalent to the strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Wrapped it, the hairdresser, with his well anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward like the stimulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at St. Org's she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest of her life. Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious affair in the Dotson's family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs. Tulliver's room ready an hour earlier than usual, that the laying out the best clothes might not be deferred to the last moment, as was sometimes the case in families of laxed views, where the ribbon strings were never rolled up, where there was little or no wrapping in silver paper, and where the sense that the Sunday clothes could be got at quite easily produced no shock to the mind. Already at twelve o'clock, Mrs. Tulliver had on her visiting costume with a protective apparatus of Brown Holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture and danger of flies. Maggie's was frowning and twisting her shoulders that she might, if possible, shrink away from the prickly of tuckers, while her mother was remonstrating, don't Maggie, my dear, don't make yourself so ugly. And Tom's cheeks were looking particularly brilliant as they relieved to his best blue suit, which he wore with becoming calmness, having, after a little wrangling, affected what was always the one point of interest to him in his toilet. He had transferred all the contents of his everyday pockets to those actually in wear. As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been yesterday. No accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was never comfortable, uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wonder and pity at Maggie, pouting and withering, under the exasperating tucker. Maggie would certainly have torn it off if she had not been checked by the remembrance of her recent humiliation about her hair. As it was, she confined herself to fretting and twisting and behaving previously about the card houses which they were allowed to build till dinner. As a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom could build perfect pyramid of houses, but Maggie's would never bear the laying on the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie made, and Tom had deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make anything. But it happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at building. She handed the cards so lightly and moved so gently that Tom condescended to admire her houses as well as his own. The more readily because she had asked him to teach her. Maggie too would have admired Lucy's houses and would have given up her own unsuccessful building to contemplate them without ill temper. If her tucker had not made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately laughed when her houses fell and told her she was a stupid. Don't laugh at me, Tom, she burst out angrily. I am not a stupid. I know a great many things you don't. Oh, I did say Ms. Spitfire. I've never been such a cross as you making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do it. I like Lucy better than you. I wish Lucy was my sister. Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so, said Maggie, starting up hurly from her place on the floor and upsetting Tom's wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said nothing. He would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do anything cowardly. Maggie stood in dismay and terror while Tom got up from the floor and walked away, pale from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lucy looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from his lapping. Oh, Tom said Maggie at last going halfway toward him. I didn't mean to knock him down indeed. Indeed, I didn't. Tom took no notice of her, but took instead two or three hard peas out of his pocket and shot them with his thumbnail against the window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of hitting a super-anidate blue bottle which was exposed in its imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of nature, who had provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak individual. Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent coldness to her all through their walks spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it to Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, Maggie, shouldn't you like one? But Tom was deaf. Still, the sight of the peacock, opportunely spreading his tail on the stockyard wall just as they reached Garwin-Furs, was enough to divert the mind temporarily from her personal grievances, and this was only the beginning of beautiful sights at Garwin-Furs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there, batons speckled and top-knotted, freeze-land hens with their feathers all turned the wrong way, guinea fowls that flew and screamed and dropped their pretty spotted feathers, polka pigeons and a tame magpie, nay a goat, and a wonderful brittle dog, half-mass stiff, half-bore dog, as large as a lion. Then there were white railings and white gates all about, and glittering weather cocks of various design, and garden walks paid with pebbles in beautiful patterns. Nothing was quite common at Garwin-Furs, and Tom thought that the unusual sight of the toads there was simply due to the general unusualness which characterized Uncle Phoulet's possessions as a gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for the house, it was not less remarkable. It had a receding center and two wings with battle-minted turrets, and was covered with glittering white stucco. Uncle Phoulet had seen the expected party approaching from the window and made haste to unbaw and unchain the front door. He kept always in his fortified condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to know the glass case of stuffed birds in the hall and to contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on their heads. Uncle Phoulet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as his sister was within here and said, Stop the children, for God's sake, Bessie, don't let them come up the doorsteps. Sally's bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes. Miss Phoulet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes on. The very scrapper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeable's incident to a visit at Aunt Phoulet's, where he had once been compelled to sit with towels wrapped around his boots. A fact which may serve to correct the two hastely conclusion that a visit to Garden First must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals. Fond, that is, of throwing stones at him. The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions. It was the mountain of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a separate bedroom, so that the ascent to these glossy steps might have served in barbarous times as a tribal outdale from which none but the most come off with unbroken limbs. Sophie's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject of bitter ministrants on Mrs. Clegg's part, and should in no comment, only thinking to herself, eating the children was safe on the landing. Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet Bessie, said Mrs. Phoulet in a pathetic tone as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap. Has she's sister, said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much interest, and how do you like it? It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking them out and putting them in again, said Mrs. Phoulet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket and looking at them earnestly. But it ought be a pity for you to go away without seeing it. There's no norm what may happen. Mrs. Phoulet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, which determined her to single out a particular key. I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister, said Mrs. Tulliver. But I should like to see what sort of a crown she's made you. Mrs. Phoulet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very bright wardrobe where you may have hastily supposed she would find a new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could only have arisen from a two superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dobson family. In this wardrobe, Mrs. Phoulet was seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of linen. It was a door key. You must come with me into the best room, said Mrs. Phoulet. May the children come too, sister, inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw that Maggie and Lucy was looking rather eager. Well, said Aunt Phoulet, reflectively, it'll perhaps be safer for them to come. They'll be touching something if we leave them behind. So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor dimly lighted by the similar lunar top of the window which rose above the closed shutter. It was really quite solemn. Aunt Phoulet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than a passage, a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feverly, showed what looked like the corpses of furniture and white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's flock and Maggie's heart beat rapidly. Aunt Phoulet half opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe with a melancholy of deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the funeral solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to assist at. Though the sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more strikingly pre-to-natural, but few things could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some moments and then said emphatically, Well, sister, I'll never speak against the full crowns again. It was a great concession and Mrs. Phoulet felt it. She felt something was due to it. You'd like to see it on, sister, she said sadly. I opened the shutter a bit further. Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister, said Mrs. Tulliver. Mrs. Phoulet took off her cap displaying the brown silk scat with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and judicious woman of those times and placing the bonnet on her head turned slowly round like a dapper's lay figure that Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view. I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much or ribbon on this left side, sister. What do you think, said Mrs. Phoulet? Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated and turned her head on one side. Well, I think as best as it is. If you met her with it, sister, you might repent. That's true, said Aunt Phoulet, taking off the bonnet and looking at it contemporarily. How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister, said Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged in the possibility of getting a humble imitation of the chef de l'or made from a piece of silk she had at home. Mrs. Phoulet screwed up her mouth and shook her head and then whispered, Phoulet pays for it. He said I was to have the best bonnet at Gollum Church, let the next best be whose it would. She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for returning it to its place in the wardrobe and her thoughts seemed to have taken a melancholy turn for she shook her head. Ah, she said at last, I may never wear twice, sister, who knows. Don't talk all that, old sister, answered Mrs. Tulliver. I hope you have your health this summer. Ah, but there may come a death in the family as there did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go and we can't think of wearing crepe less nor half a year for him. That would be unlucky, said Mrs. Tulliver, entering thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune deceased. There's never so much pleasure I wear in a bonnet the second year, especially when the crowns are so chancy. Never too some is alike. Ah, it's the way I this world, said Mrs. Phoulet, returning the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence characterized by head shaking until they had all issued from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then began to cry, she said, sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it you this day. Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a woman of sparse tears, stout and healthy. She couldn't cry so much as her sister Phoulet did and had often felt her deficiency at funerals. Her effort to bring tears into her eyes issued in an odd contradiction of her face. Maggie, looking attentively, felt that there was some painful mystery about her aunt's bonnet, which she was considered too young to understand, indignantly conscious all the while that she could have understood that as well as everything else if she had been taken into confidence. When they went down, Uncle Phoulet observed with some acumen that he reckoned the Mrs. had been showing her bonnet. That was what had made them so long upstairs. With Tom, the interval had seemed still longer, for he had been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a sofa directly opposite his Uncle Phoulet, who had guarded him with twinkling gray eyes and occasionally addressed him as young sir. Well young sir, what do you learn at school was a standing question with Uncle Phoulet. Whereupon Tom always looked sheepish, rubbed his hands across his face and answered, I don't know. It was altogether so embarrassing to be seated at the table for Uncle Phoulet that Tom could not even look at the prints on the wall, or the fly cages, or the wonderful flower pots. He saw nothing but his uncle's gators. Not that Tom was in awe of his uncle's mental superiority. Indeed, he had made up his mind that he didn't want to be a gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to be such a thin-legged, silly fellow as his Uncle Phoulet. A Marley Cuddle, in fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering reverence. And while you are making encouraging advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by his sense of your age and wisdom, tend to what he is thinking you extremely queer. The only consolation I can suggest to you is that the Greek boys probably thought the same Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or thrashed a Dre man, or have got a gun in your hand that these shy juniors feel you to be a truly amicable and invidible character. At least I'm quite sure of Tom Toliver's sentiments on these points. In very tender years when he still wore a lace border under his outdoor cap, he was often observing people peeping through the bars of a gate and making minotoy gestures with a small forefinger while he scolded the sheep with an articulate blur, intended to strike terror into their astonished minds, indicating thus early that desire for mastery over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, including cock chaffers, neighbors, dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages has been an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our race. Now Mr. Pallette never wrote anything taller than a low pony and was the least predatory of men, considering the firearms dangerous as apt to go off of themselves by nobody's particular desire. So that Tom was not without strong reasons when, in confidential talk with the chum, he had described Pallette as a nincompoop, taking care at the same time to observe that he was a very rich fellow. The only alleviating circumstance in a tether-tale with Uncle Pallette was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint drops about his person and when at a loss for conversation, he filled up the void by proposing a mutual solace of this kind. Do you like peppermint's young sir? Required only a texel answer when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question. The appearance of the little girls suggested to Uncle Pallette the further solace of small, sweet cakes, of which he also kept a stock under lock and key for his own private eating on wet days. But the three children had no sooner got the tempting delicacy between their fingers that Aunt Pallette desired them to abstain from eating it till the tray and the plates came. Since with these crisp cakes they would make the floor all over crumbs, Lucy didn't mind that much for the cake was so pretty, she thought it was rather a pity to eat it. But Tom, watching his opportunity while the elders were talking, hastily stowed it in his mouth at two bites and chewed it furtively. As for Maggie, becoming fascinated as usual by a print of Ulysses and Noxica, which Uncle Pallette has brought as a pretty, sceptre thing, she presently let fall her cake and in an unlucky movement crushed it beneath her foot. A source of so much agitation to Aunt Pallette and conscious disgrace to Maggie that she began to despair of him the musical snuff box today till, after some reflection, it occurred to her that Lucy was in high favor enough to venture on asking for a tune. So she whispered to Lucy and Lucy, who always did what she was desired to do, went up quietly to her uncle's knee and blushed all over her neck while she fingered her necklace said, Will you please play us a tune, Uncle? Lucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in Uncle Pallette that the snuff box played such beautiful tunes and indeed the thing was viewed in that light by the majority of his neighbors in Garum. Mr. Pallette had brought the box to begin with and he understood winding it up and knew which tune it was good to play beforehand. All together the possession of this unique piece of music was a proof that Mr. Pallette's character was not of that entire nobility which might otherwise have been attributed to it, but Uncle Pallette went and treated to exhibit his accomplishment never defecated it by a too ready consent. Will see about it was the answer he always gave, carefully abstaining from any sign of compliance till a suitable number of minutes had passed. Uncle Pallette had a program for all great social occasions and in this way fenced himself in from much painful confusion and perplexing freedom of will. Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie's enjoyment when the fairy tune began. For the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on her mind, that Tom was angry with her, and by the time her she pretty wobbly choir had been played, her face wore that bright look of happiness while she sat in movable with her hands clasped which sometimes confronted her mother with the sense that Maggie could look pretty now and then in spite of her brown skin. But when the music, magic music ceased, she jumped up and running toward Tom, put her arm around his neck and said, Oh Tom, isn't it pretty? Lease you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Tom that he felt any new anger toward Maggie. For this uncalled for and to him inexplicable caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cow slip wine in his hand and that she jerked him so as to make him spill half of it. He must have been an extreme milk sock, not to say angrily. Look there now, especially when his resentment was sanctioned as it was by general disappropriation of Maggie's behavior. Why don't you sit still, Maggie, her mother said previously. Little gels mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way, said Uncle Poulette. Why you are too rough, little miss, said Uncle Poulette. Poor Maggie sat down again with the music all chased out of her soul and the seven small demons all in again. Mrs. Toliver for seeing nothing but misbehavior while the children remain indoors took an early opportunity of suggesting that now they were rested after their walk, they might go and play outdoors and Uncle Poulette gave permission only in joining them not to go off the pave walks in the garden and if they wanted to see the poultry fed to view them from a distance on the horse block. A restriction which had been imposed ever since Tom had been found guilty of running after the peacock with an oscillatory ideal that fright would make one of his feathers drop off. Mrs. Toliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the quarrel with Mrs. Clegg by millinery and maternal cares. But now the great theme of the bond was thrown into perspective and the children were out of the way. Yesterday's anxieties recurred. It weighs on my mind so as never was, she said, in a way of opening the subject Sister Clegg's leaving the house in that way. I'm sure I know which to offend the sister. Ah, said Uncle Poulette, there's no accounting for what Jane will do. I wouldn't speak of it out of the family if it wasn't to Dr. Turnbull but it's my belief Jane lives too low. I've said so to Poulette often and often and he knows it. Why you said so last Monday was weak when we came away from drinking tea with him, said Mr. Poulette, beginning to nurse his knee and shelter it with his pocket handkerchief as was his way when the conversation took an interesting turn. Very like I did, said Mrs. Poulette, for you remember when I said things better than I can remember myself. He's got a wonderful memory, Poulette has, she continued, looking pathetically at her sister. I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke for he always remembers when I've got to take my doctor's stuff and I'm taking three sorts now. There's the pills as before every other night and the new drops at 11 and 4 and the fluorescence mixture when agreeable, rehearsed Mr. Poulette, with a punctuation determined by a lotions on his tongue. Perhaps it'll all be better for Sister Clay if she go to the doctor sometimes instead of chewing turkey rhubarb whenever there's anything to matter with her, said Mrs. Tulliver, who naturally saw the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Clegg. It's dreadful to think on, said Aunt Poulette, raising her hands and letting them fall again. People paying with their own insides in that way and it's fine either face or providence for what are the doctors for and we ought to call them in and when folks have got the money to pay for a doctor, it isn't respectable. As I've told Jane many a time, I'm ashamed of acquaintance knowing it. Well, we've no call to be ashamed, said Mr. Poulette, for Dr. Turnbull has gotten such another patient as you are, this parish, now Ole Miss Sutton's gone. Poulette keeps all my physical bottles. Did you know that, Sid? Said Mrs. Poulette. He won't have one soul. He says it's nothing but right folks should see him when I'm gone. They'll feel too old a long store room shelves already, but she had it beginning to cry a little. It's well if they ever feel three. I may go before I've made up the dozen of these last sizes. The pillboxes are in the closet in my room. You'll remember that, sister, but there's nothing to show for the blossoms if it isn't the bills. Don't talk old you're going, sister, said Mrs. Tulliver. I should have nobody to stand between me and Sister Clegg if you was gone and there's nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver. For Sister Deney's never on my side and if she was it's not to be looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent fortune. Well, your husband is awkward, you know, Bessie, said Mrs. Poulette, good naturedly, ready to use her deep depression on her sister's account as well as her own. He's never behaved quite so pretty to our family as he should do. And the children take after him the boy's very mischievous and runs away from his aunts and uncles and the gels rude and brown. It's your bad luck and I'm sorry for you, Bessie. For you was always my favorite sister and we always like the same patterns. I know Tulliver's hasty and says odd things, said Mrs. Tulliver, wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye. But I'm sure he's never been the man since he married me to object to my making the friends on my side of the family welcome to the house. I don't want to make the worst of you, Bessie, said Mrs. Poulette, compassionately, for I doubt you'll have trouble enough without that and your husband's got that poor sister and her children hanging on him and so given to Lauren, they say, I doubt he'll leave you poorly off when he dies. Not as I have it said out of the family. This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs. Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on but she could not help thinking that her case was a hard one since it appeared that other people thought it hard. I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself, she said, urged by the fear, least her anticipated misfortunes might be her rebutive to take comprehensive review of her past conduct. There's no woman strives more for her children and I'm sure at scouting's time, this lady day as I've had all the bed hangings taken down, I did as much as the two gels put together and there's the last elder flower wine I've made. Beautiful. I've always offered it along with the sherry. Though sister Clegg will have it, I'm so extravagant and as for liking to have my clothes tidy and not go a fright about the house, there's nobody in the parish can say anything against me and respect old backbiting and making mischief. For I don't wish anybody any harm and nobody loses by sending me a pork pie, for my pies are fit to show with the best of my neighbors and linen so in order as if I was to die tomorrow I shouldn't be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she can but it's all oh no you should know besties and Mrs. Pallette holding her head on one side and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister. If your husband makes a way of all his money, not but what if you was sold up and other folks brought your furniture. It's a comfort to think as you've kept it well rubbed and there's the linen with your maiden mark on it might go all over the country. It'll be a sad pity for our family, Mrs. Pallette shook her head slowly. But what can I do sister said Mrs. Tulliver. Mr. Tulliver's not a man to be dictated to. Not if I was to go to the prosin and get by heart what I should tell my husband for the best and I'm sure I don't pretend to know anything about putting out money and all of that. I could never see into men's businesses as sister Clay does well. You are like me in that way bestie said Mrs. Pallette and I think it'll be a deal more becoming of Jane if she have their peer glass rubbed off. There was ever so many spots on it last week. Instead of a dictating to folks as have more Cummins in than she ever had and telling them what there to do with their money. But Jane and me were always contrary. She would have stripped things and I like spots. You like a spot too bestie. We always hung together in that. Yes Sophie said Mrs. Tulliver. I remember I'm having a blue ground with a white spot both alike. I've got a bed in the bed quilt now and if you would but go and see sister Clay and persuade her to make it up with Tulliver I should take it very kind of you. You was always a good sister to me. But the right thing would be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her himself and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he's borrowed money of her he shouldn't be above that said Mrs. Pallette whose partiality did not blind her to principles. She did not forget what was due to people in of independent fortune. It's no use talking of that said poor Mrs. Tulliver almost previously. If I was to go down on my bare knees on a gravel to Tulliver he'll never humble himself. Well you can't expect me to persuade Jane to beg pardon said Mrs. Pallette her temper is beyond everything. It's well if it doesn't care her off her mind though there never was any of our family went to a madhouse I'm not thinking of her begging pardon said Mrs. Tulliver. But if she just take no notice and not call her money in as it's not so much for one sister to ask of another time erred men things and Tulliver erred forget all about it and they'll be friends again. Mrs. Tulliver you perceived was not aware of her husband's irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds at least such a determination exceeded her powers of belief. Well Bessie said Mrs. Pallette mournfully I don't want to help you on to ruin. I won't be behind handed doing you a good turn if it is to be done and I don't like it said among acquaintance as we've got calls in the family I shall tell Jane that and I don't mind giving driving to Jane's tomorrow if Mr. Pallette doesn't mind. What do you say Mr. Pallette? I have no objections said Mr. Pallette who was perfectly contended with any course the call might take so that Mr. Tulliver did not apply to him for money. Mr. Pallette was nervous about his investments and did not see how a man could have any security for his money unless he turned it into land. After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to Sister Clegg Mrs. Pallette observing that it was tea time turned to reach from a drawer a delicate Damasque napkin which she pinned before him in the fashion of an apron. The door did in fact soon open but instead of the tea tray Sally introduced an object so startling that both Mrs. Pallette and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream causing Uncle Pallette to swallow his lozenge for the fifth time in his life as he afterward noted. End of Book 1 Chapter 9 Recording by Daisy 55 The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott Book 1 Chapter 10 of The Mill on the Floss This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott Book 1 Boy and Girl Chapter 10 Maggie behaves worse than she expected The startling object which thus made an epoch for Uncle Pallette was no other than Lucy, with one side of her person from her small foot to her bonnet crown wet and discoloured with mud holding out through tiny blackened hands and making a very piteous face. To account for this unprecedented apparition in Aunt Pallette's parlour, we must return to the moment when the three children went out to play out of doors and the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's soul were found in all the greater force after a temporary absence. All the disagreeable recollections of the morning were thick upon her when Tom, whose displeasure towards her had been considerably refreshed by her foolish trick of causing him to upset his cow-slip wife, said, Here Lucy, you come along with me and walked off to the area where the toads were as if there was no Maggie in existence. Seeing this Maggie lingered at a distance looking like a small medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was naturally pleased that Cousin Tom was so good to her and it was very amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string when the toad was safe down in the area with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would doubtless find the name for the toad and say what had been his past history For Lucy had a delighted semi-belief in Maggie's stories about the live things they came upon by accident. How Mrs. Erewig had a wash at home and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had a profound contempt for this nonsense of Maggie's smashing the Erewig at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire unreality of such a story. But Lucy for the life of her could not help fancying there was something in it and at all events thought it was very pretty make-believe. So now that his eye to know the history of a very portly toad added to her habitual affectionateness made her run back to Maggie and say oh there are such a big funny toad Maggie do come and see. Maggie said nothing and turned away from her with a deeper frown. As long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her Lucy made part of his unkindness. Maggie would have thought a little while ago that she could never be crossed with pretty little Lucy any more than she could be cruel to a little white mouse. But then Tom had always been quite indifferent to Lucy before and it had been left to Maggie to pet and make much of her. As it was she was actually beginning to think that she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her especially as it might vex Tom whom it was no use to slap even if she did because he didn't mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner. Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that is possible to exhaust and Tom by and by began to look round for some other mode of passing the time but in so primer gardens where they were not to go off the paved walks there was not a great choice of sport. The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the pleasure of breaking it and Tom began to meditate and an insurrectionary visit to the pond about a field's length beyond the garden. I say Lucy he began nodding his head up and down with great significance as he caught up his string again. What do you think I mean to do? What Tom said Lucy with curiosity? I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if you like said the young soul. Tom dare you said Lucy? Aunt said we mustn't go out of the garden. I shall go out at the other end of the garden said Tom. You'll see us. Besides I don't care if they do. I'll run off home. But I couldn't run said Lucy who had never before been exposed to such severe temptation. Oh never mind they won't be crossed with you said Tom. You say I took you. Tom walked along and Lucy trotted by his side timidly enjoying the rare treat of doing something naughty excited also by the mention of that celebrity the pike about which she was quite uncertain whether it was a fish or a fail. Maggie saw them leaving the garden and could not resist the impulse to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie. So she kept a few yards behind them and observed by Tom who was presently absorbed in watching for the pike. A highly interesting monster he was said to be so very old so very large and to have such a remarkable appetite. The pike like other celebrities did not show when he was watched for but Tom caught sight of something in rapid movement in the water which attracted him to another spot on the brink of the pond. Hey Lucy he said in a loud whisper come here take care keep on the grass don't step where the cows have been. He added pointing to a peninsula of dry grass with trodden mud on each side of it for Tom's contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute of being unfit to walk in dirty places. Lucy came carefully as she was bitten and bent down to look at what seemed a golden arrowhead darting through the water. It was a water snake Tom told her and Lucy at last could see the serpentine wave of its body very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie had drawn nearer and nearer she must see it too though it was bitter to her like everything else since Tom did not care about her seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy and Tom who had been aware of her approach but would not notice till he was obliged to turned around and said now get away Maggie there's no room for you on the grass here nobody asked you to come. There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a tragedy if tragedies were made by passion alone. The essential Tim Megathas which was present in the passion was wanting to the action. The utmost Maggie could do with a fierce thrust of a small brown arm was to push poor little pink and white Lucy into the cow trodden mud. Then Tom could not restrain himself and gave Maggie two smart slaps on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy who lay crying helplessly. Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off and looked on impenitently. Usually her repentance came quickly after one rash deed but now Tom and Lucy had made her so miserable she was glad to spoil her happiness glad to make everyone uncomfortable. Why should she be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive her however sorry she might have been. I shall tell Mother you know Miss Maggie said Tom loudly and emphatically as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was not Tom's practice to tell but he had just as clearly demanded that Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment not that Tom had learnt to put his views in that abstract form. He never mentioned justice and had no idea that his desire to punish might be called by that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had befallen her the spoiling of her pretty best clothes and the discomfort of being wet and dirty to think much of the cause which was entirely mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she had done to make Maggie angry with her but she felt that Maggie was very unkind and disagreeable and made no magnum in his entreaties to Tom that he would not tell only running along by his side and crying piteously while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked after them with her small, medusa face. Sally said Tom when they reached the kitchen door and Sally looked at them in speechless amaze with a piece of bread and butter in her mouth and a toasting fork in her hand. Sally told Mother it was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud. But Lord Hamarsi how did you get near such mud as that? said Sally, making a rye face as she stooped down and examined the corpus delicto. Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include this question amongst the foreseen consequences but it was no sooner put that he foresaw whether it tended and that Maggie would not be considered the only culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from the kitchen door leaving Sally to that pleasure of guessing which active minds notoriously preferred to ready-made knowledge. Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor door. For to have so dirty an object introduced into the house at Garum Furs was too great a weight to be sustained by a single mind. Goodness gracious, Aunt Pulitzer, after polluting by an inarticulate scream. Keep her at the door, Sally. Don't bring off the oilcloth whatever you do. Why? She's tumbled into some nasty mud, said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she felt herself responsible to her sister Dean. If you please, Aunt, but was Miss Maggie has pushed her in, said Sally. Master Tom's been and said so and I must have been to the pond for it's only there that they could have gotten to such dirt. There it is, Bessie. That's what I've been telling you, the prophetic sadness. It's your children, there's no knowing what they'll come to. Mrs. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As usual, the thought pressed upon her that people would think she had done something wicked to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs. Pulitzer began to give elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt. Meantime, tea was to be bought in by the cook and the two naughty children would have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen. Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing them to be close at hand. But it was not until after some search that she found Tom leaning with rather hardened careless air against the white patting of the poultry yard and lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means of exasperating the turkey cock. Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister? said Mrs. Tulliver in a distressed voice. I don't know, said Tom. His eagerness for justice on Maggie had diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be bought about without the injustice of some blame on his own condom. Why, where did you leave her? said the mother, looking round. Sitting under the tree against the pond, said Tom, apparently indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey cock. Then go fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy, and how could you think of going to the pond and taking your sister where there was dirt? You know she'll do mischief if there's mischief to be done. It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his misdemeanor somehow or other to Maggie. The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused a habitual fear in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, when she mounted the horse block to satisfy herself by the sight of that fatal child. While Tom walks, not very quickly, on his way towards him. There's such children for the water, my nurse, she said aloud, without reflecting that there was no one to hear her. They'll be bought in dead and drowned someday. I wish that river was far enough. But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom returning from the pool alone, tov'ring fear entered and took complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him. Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother, said Tom, she's gone away. You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie and the difficulty of convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet observed that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there was no knowing. And Mr. Pullet confused and overwhelmed by this revolutionary aspect of things, but he deferred and the poultry alone by the unusual running to and fro, took up his spud as an instrument of search and reached down the key to unlock the goose pin as a likely place for Maggie to like and seal them. Tom after a while started the idea that Maggie was gone home without thinking it necessary to state that that's what he would have done himself under the circumstances, and the suggestion was seized on as a comfort by his mother. Sister, for goodness sake, let him put a horse in the carriage and take me home, we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can't walk in her dirty clothes, she said, looking at that innocent victim who was wrapped up in a shore and sitting with naked feet on the sofa. Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring her premises to order and quiet. And it was not long before Mrs. Tullet was in the shade, looking anxiously at the most distant point before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost was a question that predominated over every other. End of Chapter 10. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Gillian Upton. The Millar The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott. Chapter 11. Book 1. Maggie tries to run away from her shadow. Maggie's intentions as usual were on a larger scale than Tom imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind after Tom and Lucy had walked away was not so simple as that of going home. No, she would run away and go to the gypsies and Tom should never see her anymore. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie. She had been so often told she was like a gypsy and half wild that when she was miserable it seemed to her that the only way of escaping a probrium and being entirely in harmony with circumstances would be to live in a little brown tent on the commons. The gypsies she considered and pay her much respect on account of her superior knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and suggested that he should stay in his face brown and they should run away together but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt observing that gypsies were thieves and hardly got anything to eat and had nothing to drive but a donkey. Today however Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which gypsiedom was her refuge and she rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this was a great crisis in her life. She would run straight away till she came to Dunlow Common where there would certainly be gypsies and cruel Tom and the rest of her relations who found fault with her should never see her anymore. She thought of her father as she ran along but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him that she would secretly send him a letter by a small gypsy who would run away without telling where she was and just let him know that she was well and happy and always loved him very much. Maggie soon got out of breath with running but by the time Tom got to the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields and was on the edge of a lane leading to the high road. She stopped to pant a little reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until one had got quite to the Common where the gypsies were but her resolution had not abated. She presently passed through the gate into the lane, not knowing where it would lead her for it was not this way that they came from Doorcoat Mill to Garum Furs and she felt all the safer for that because there was no chance of her being overtaken. But she was soon aware not without trembling that there were two men coming along in front of her. She had not thought of meeting strangers she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby looking men with flushed faces one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his shoulder but to her surprise while she was dreading their disapprobation as a runaway the man with the bundle stopped and in a half whining she had to give a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket her uncle Gleg's present which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a polite smile hoping he would feel very kindly towards her as a generous person that's the only money I've got she said apologetically Thank you little miss said the man in a less respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated and she even observed that he smiled and winked at his companion she walked on hurriedly but was aware that the two men were standing still probably to look after her and she presently heard them laughing loudly suddenly it occurred to her that they might think she was an idiot Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an idiot and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten besides she had no sleeves on only a cape and bonnet it was clear that she was not likely to make a favourable impression on passengers and she thought she would turn into the fields again but not on the same side of the lane as before lest they should still be Uncle Pullitt's fields she turned through the first gate that was not locked and felt a delightful sense of privacy and creeping along by the hedgerows after her recent humiliating encounter she was used to wondering about the fields by herself and she was more worried than on the high road sometimes she had to climb over high gates but that was a small evil she was getting out of reach very fast and she should probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common or at least of some other common for she had heard her father say that you couldn't go very far without coming to a common she hoped so for she was getting rather tired and hungry and until she reached the gypsies there was no definite prospect of her father it was still broad daylight for Aunt Pullitt retaining the early habits of the Dodson family took tea at half past four by the sun and at five by the kitchen clock so though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started there was no gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that night would come still it seemed to her that she'd been walking a very great distance indeed and it was really surprising that the Common hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum where there was a great deal of past Geland and she had only seen one laborer at a distance that was fortunate in some respects as laborers might be too ignorant to understand the propriety of her wanting to go to Dunlow Common yet it would have been better if she could have met someone who would tell her the way without wanting to know anything about her private business at last however the green fields came to an end and Maggie found herself looking through the bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of it she had never seen such a wide lane before and without her knowing why it gave her the impression that the Common could not be far off perhaps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his foot feeding on the grassy margin for she had seen a donkey with that pitiable incumbance on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in her father's gig she crept through the bars of the gate and walked on with new spirit though not without haunting images of a polyon and a highwayman with a pistol and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth from ear to ear and other miscellaneous dangers for poor little Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the daring that comes from overmastering impulse she had rushed into the adventure of seeking her unknown kindred the gypsies and now she was in this strange lane she hardly dared look on one side of her lest she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathernate from grinning at her with arms of Kimbo it was not without a leaping of the heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up and up a most by the side of a hillock they seemed something hideously preternatural a diabolical kind of fungus for she was too much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the dark shaggy head attached to them it was a boy asleep and Maggie trotted along faster and more lightly lest she should wake him it did not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies who in all probability would have very genial manners but the fact was so for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it which was to be her refuge from all the blighting obliquy that had pursued her in civilised life she even saw a tall female figure by the column of smoke doubtless the gypsy mother who provided the tea and other groceries it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more delighted but it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane after all and not on a common indeed it was rather disappointing for a mysterious, illimitable common where there were sand pits to hide in and one was out of everybody's reach had always made part of Maggie's picture of gypsy life she went on however and thought with some comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots so there was no danger of their falling into the mistake of setting her down at first glance as an idiot it was plain she had attracted attention for the tall figure who proved to be a young woman with a baby on her arm walked slowly to meet her Maggie looked up in the new face rather tremblingly as it approached and was reassured by the thought that her aunt Pulet and the rest were right when they called her a gypsy for this face with the bright dark eyes and the long hair was really something like what she used to see in the glass before she cut her hair off my little lady where are you going? the gypsy said in a tone of coaxing deference it was delightful and just what Maggie expected the gypsy sought once that she was a little lady and were prepared to treat her accordingly her father said Maggie feeling as if she was saying what she had rehearsed in a dream I've come to stay with you please that's pretty come then why what a nice little lady you are to be sure said the gypsy taking her by the hand Maggie thought her very agreeable but wished she had not been so dirty there was quite a group around the fire when she reached it an old gypsy woman was seated on the ground with her knees and occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam two small shock-headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes and a placid donkey was bending his head over a tall girl who lying on her back was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bit of excellent stolen hay the slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them the scene was really very pretty and comfortable Maggie thought only she hoped that they would soon set out the tea cups everything would be quite charming when she had taught the gypsies to use a washing basin and to feel an interest in books it was a little confusing though that the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which Maggie did not understand while the tall girl who was feeding the donkey sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation at last the old woman said what my pretty lady are you come to stay with us sit me down and tell us where you come from it was just like a story Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and treated in this way she sat down and said I come from home because I am unhappy and I mean to be a gypsy I live with you if you like and I can teach you a great many things such a clever little lady said the woman with the baby sitting down by Maggie and allowing the baby to crawl and such a pretty bonnet and frock she added taking off Maggie's bonnet and looking at it while she made an observation to the old woman in the unknown language the tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind foremost with a grin but Maggie was determined not to show any weakness on this subject because she was susceptible about her bonnet I don't want to wear a bonnet she said I'd rather wear a red handkerchief like yours looking at her friend by her side my hair was quite long till yesterday when I cut it off but I dare say it will grow again very soon she added apologetically thinking it probable the gypsies had a strong prejudice in favour of long hair and Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment the desire to conciliate gypsy opinion oh what a nice little lady and rich I'm sure said the old woman don't you live in a big beautiful house at home yes my home is pretty and I'm very fond of the river where we go fishing but I'm often very unhappy I should have liked to bring my books with me but I came away in a hurry you know but I can tell you almost everything there is in my books so many times and that will amuse you and I can tell you something about geography too that's about the world we live in very useful and interesting did you ever hear about Columbus Maggie's eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush she was really beginning to instruct the gypsies and gaining great influence over them the gypsies themselves were not without amazement at this talk though their attention was divided by the contents of Maggie's pocket which the friend at her right hand had by this time emptied without attracting her notice is that where you live my little lady said the old woman at the mention of Columbus oh no said Maggie with some pity Columbus was a very wonderful man who found out half the world and they put chains on him and treated him very badly you know it's in my catechism of geography but perhaps it's rather too long to tell before tea I want my tea so the last words burst from Maggie in spite of herself with a sudden drop from patronising instruction to simple peevishness why she's hungry poor little lady said the young woman give her some of the cold vitil you've been walking a good way I'll be bound my dear where's your home it's a doll coat mill a good way off said Maggie there is Mr Tulliver but we mustn't let him know where I am else he'll fetch me home again where does the queen of the gypsies live what do you want to go to her my little lady said the young woman the tall girl meanwhile was constantly staring at Maggie and grinning her manners were certainly not agreeable no said Maggie I'm only thinking that if she isn't a very good queen you might be glad when she died and you could choose another if I was queen I'd be a very good queen and kind to everybody here's a bit of nice vitil then said the old woman handing to Maggie a lump of dry bread which she'd taken from a bag of scraps and a piece of cold bacon thank you said Maggie looking at the food without taking it but will you give me some bread and butter and tea instead I don't like bacon we got no tea nor butter said the old woman with something like a scowl as if she was getting tired of coaxing oh a little bread and treacle would do said Maggie we ain't got no treacle said the old woman crossly where upon their followed a sharp dialogue between the two women in their unknown tongue and one of the small sphinxes snatched at the bread and bacon and began to eat it at this moment the tall girl who had gone a few yards off came back and said something which produced a strong effect the old woman seeming to forget Maggie's hunger poked the skewer into the pot with new vigor and the younger crept under the tent and reached out some platters and spoons Maggie trembled a little and was afraid the tears would come into her eyes meanwhile the tall girl gave a shrill cry and presently came running up the boy whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping a rough urchin about the age of Tom he stared at Maggie and their ensued much incomprehensible chattering she felt very lonely and it was quite short she should begin to cry before long the gypsies didn't seem to mind her at all and she felt quite weak among them but the springing tears were checked by new terror when two men came up whose approach had been the cause of the sudden excitement the elder of the two carried a bag which he flung down addressing the women in a loud and scolding tone which they answered by a shower of treble sourciness while a black cur ran barking up to Maggie and threw her into a tremor that only found a new cause in the curses with which the younger man called the dog off and gave him a wrap with a great stick he held in his hand Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these people or ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge both the men now seem to be inquiring about Maggie for they looked at her and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind which implies curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on the other at last the younger woman said in her previous deferential coaxing tone this nice little lady's come to live with us aren't you glad hey very glad said the younger man who was looking at Maggie's silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her pocket he returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman with some observation and she immediately restored them to Maggie's pocket while the men seated themselves and began to attack the contents of the kettle a stew of meat and potatoes which had been taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gypsies they must certainly be thieves unless the man meant to return her thimble by and by she would willingly have given it to him for she was not at all attached to her thimble but the idea that she was among thieves prevented her from feeling any comfort in the revival of deference and attention toward her all thieves except Robin Hood were wicked people the woman saw she was frightened we've got nothing nice for a lady to eat said the old woman in her coaxing tone and she's so hungry sweet little lady here my dear try if you can eat a bit of this said the younger woman handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to Maggie who remembering that the old woman had seemed angry with her for not liking the bread and bacon dead not refused the stew though fear had chased away her appetite if her father would but come by to dig and take her up or even if Jack the giant killer or Mr. Greatheart or St. George who slew the dragon on the hapeness would happen to pass that way but Maggie thought with a sinking heart that these heroes were never seen in the neighborhood of St. Augs nothing very wonderful ever came there Maggie Tulliver you perceive was by no means that well trained well informed young person that a small female of eight or nine is in these days she had only been to school a year at St. Augs and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary so that in travelling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge she could have informed you that there was such a word as polygamy and being also acquainted with Polly Syllable she had deduced the conclusion that Polly meant many that she had no idea that gypsies were not well supplied with groceries and her thoughts generally were the oddest mixture of clear eyed acumen and blind dreams her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the last five minutes from having considered them very respectful companions amenable to instruction she began to think that they meant perhaps to kill her as soon as it was dark and cut up her body for gradual cooking the suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed old man was in fact the devil who might drop that transparent disguise at any moment and turn either into the grinning blacksmith or else a fiery-eyed monster with dragon's wings it was no use trying to eat the stew and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend the gypsies by betraying her extremely unfavourable opinion of them and she wondered with a keenness of interest that no theologian could have exceeded whether if the devil were really present he would know her thoughts what? don't you like the smell of it my dear said the young woman observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew try a bit, come no thank you said Maggie summoning all her force for a desperate effort and trying to smile in a friendly way I haven't time I think it seems getting darker I think I must go home now and come again another day and then I can bring you a basket with some jam-tarts and things Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect devoutly hoping that a polygon was gullible but her hope sank when the old gypsy woman said stop a bit stop a bit little lady we'll take you home all safe when we've done supper you shall ride home like a lady Maggie sat down again with little faith in this promise though she presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey and throwing a couple of bags on his back now that little missus said the younger man rising and leading the donkey forward tell us where you live what's the name of the place doll coat mill is my home said Maggie eagerly my father is Mr. Tulliver he lives there beside a saint ox yes said Maggie is it far off I think I should like to walk there if you please no no it be getting dark we must make haste and the donkey will carry you as nice as can be you'll see he lifted Maggie as he spoke and set her on the donkey she felt relieved that it was not the old man who seemed to be going with her but she had only a trembling hope that she was really going home lady bonnet said the younger woman putting that recently despised but now welcome article of costume on Maggie's head and you'll say we've been very good to you won't you and what a nice little lady we said you was oh yes thank you said Maggie I'm very much obliged to you but I wish you'd go with me too she thought anything was better than going with one of the dreadful men alone it would be more cheerful to be murdered by a larger party ah you're fondest to me aren't you said the woman but I can't go you'll go too fast for me it now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey holding Maggie before him and she was as incapable of remonstrating against this arrangement as the donkey himself though no nightmare had ever seemed to her more horrible when the woman had patted her on her back and said goodbye the donkey at a strong hint from the man's stick set off at a rapid walk along the lane towards the point Maggie had come from an hour ago while the tall girl and the rough urchin also furnished with sticks obligingly escorted them for the first hundred yards with much screaming and thwacking not Leonore in that pre-to-natural midnight excursion with her phantom lover was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural ride of the donkey with a gypsy behind her who considered that he was earning half a crown the red light of the setting sun seemed to have a portentous meaning with which the alarming bray of the second donkey with a log on its foot must surely have some connection two low-thatched cottages the only houses they passed in this lane seemed to add to its dreariness they had no windows to speak of and the doors were closed and that they were inhabited by witches and it was a relief to find that the donkey did not stop there at last, oh sight of joy this lane, the longest in the world, was coming to an end was opening on a broad high road where there was actually a coach passing and there was a finger post at the corner she had surely seen that finger post before two Saint Augs two miles the gypsy really meant to take her home then he was probably a good man after all and might have been rather hurt at the thought that she didn't like coming with him alone this idea became stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the road quite well and she was considering how she might open a conversation with the injured gypsy and not only gratify his feelings but to face the impression of her cowardice when, as they reached a crossroad Maggie caught sight of someone coming on a white-faced horse oh stop, stop she cried out there's my father oh father, father the sudden joy was almost painful and before her father reached her she was sobbing great was Mr Tulliver's wonder for he had made a round from Bassett and had not yet been home why, what's the meaning of this he said checking his horse while Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father's stirrup the little miss lost herself I reckon said the gypsy she'd come to our tent at the far end of Dunlow Lane and I was bringing her where she said her own was it's a good way to come after being on the tramp all day oh yes father he's been very good to bring me home said Maggie a very kind, good man here then my man said Mr Tulliver taken out five shillings it's the best day's work you ever did I couldn't afford to lose the little wench here lift her up before me why Maggie how's this, how's this he said as they rode along while she laid her head against her father and sobbed how came you to be rambling about and lose yourself oh father sob Maggie I ran away because I was so unhappy Tom was so angry with me I couldn't bear it poo poo said Mr Tulliver soothingly you mustn't think of running away from father what a father do without his little wench oh no I never will again father never Mr Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that evening and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie had never heard one reproach from her mother or one taunt from Tom about this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies Maggie was rather awestricken by this unusual treatment and sometimes thought that her conduct had been too wicked to be alluded to end of chapter boy and girl chapter 12 Mr and Mrs Gleg at home in order to see Mr and Mrs Gleg at home we must enter the town of St. Augs that venerable town with the red fluted roofs and the broad warehouse gables where the black ships unlaid themselves of their burdens from the far north and carry away in exchange the precious inland products the well-crushed cheese the leases which my refined readers have doubtless become acquainted with through a medium of the best classic pastorals it is one of those old old towns which impress one as a continuation and outgrowth of nature as much as the nests of the bower birds or the winding galleries or the white ants a town which carries the traces of its long growth and history like a millennial tree and has sprung up and developed in the same spot between a river and a low hill from the time when the Roman legions turned their backs on it from the camp on the hillside and the long-haired sea kings came up the river and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness of the land it is a town familiar with forgotten years the shadow of the Saxon hero kings though walks there fitfully reviewing the scenes of his youth and love time and is met by the gloomier shadow of the dreadful Ethan Dane who was stabbed in the midst of his warriors by the sword of an invisible Avenger and who rises on autumn evenings like a white mist from his tumulus on the hill and hovers in the court of the old hall by the riverside the spot where he was thus miraculously slain in the days before the old hall was built it was the Normans who began to build that fine old hall which is like the town with lots and hands of widely sundered generations but it is all so old that we look with loving pardon at its inconsistencies and are well content that they who built the stone Oreo and they who built the Gothic façade and towers of finest small brickwork with a trefoil ornament and the windows and battlements defined with stone that not sacrilegiously pulled down the ancient half-timbered body of oak-roofed banketing hall but older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now built into the belfry of the Paris church and said to be a remnant of the original chapel dedicated to St. Aug the patron saint of this ancient town of whose history I possess several manuscript versions I inclined to the briefest since if it should not be wholly true it is at least likely to retain the least falsehood Aug the son of Bior says my private hagiographer was a boatman who gained a scanty living by ferrying passengers across the river floss and it came to pass one evening when the winds were high that there sat moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms and she was clad in rags and had a worn and withered look and she craved to be rode across the river and the men there about questioned her and said wherefore dost thou desire to cross the river tarry till the morning and take shelter here for the night so shalt thou be wise and not foolish still she went on to mourn and crave but Aug the son of Bior came up and said I will ferry thee across it is enough that thy heart needs it and he ferried her across and it came to pass when she stepped ashore and handed to robes of flowing white and her face became bright with exceeding beauty and there was a glory around it so that she shed a light on the water like the moon in its brightness and she said Aug the son of Bior Thou art blessed and that thou didst not question and wrangle with the heart's need but was smitten with pity and did straight away relieve the same and from henceforth whoso steps into thy boat shall be in no peril from the storm and whenever it puts forth to the rescue it shall save the lives both of men and beasts and when the floods came many were saved by the reason of that blessing on the boat but when Aug the son of Bior died behold in the parting of his soul the boat loosed itself from its moorings and was floated with the ebbing tied in great swiftness to the ocean and was seen no more yet it was witnessed in the floods of after time that at the coming on of Eventide Aug the son of Bior was always seen with his boat upon the wide-spreading waters and the blessed virgin sat in the prow shedding the light around as of the moon in its brightness so that the rowers in the gathering darkness took heart and pulled anew this legend one sees reflects from a far-off time the visitation of the floods which, even when they left human life untouched were widely fatal to the helpless cattle and swept to sudden death over all smaller living things but the town knew worse troubles even than the floods troubles of the civil wars when it was a continual fighting place where first Puritans thank God for the blood of the loyalists and their loyalists thank God for the blood of the Puritans many honest citizens lost all their possessions for conscience's sake in those times and went forth beggard from their native town doubtless there are many houses standing now on which those honest citizens turned their backs in sorrow quaint gabled houses looking on the river jammed between newer warehouses impenetrated by surprising passages which turn and turn at sharp angles till they lead you out on a muddy strand overflowed continually by the rushing tide everywhere the brick houses have a mellow look and in Mrs. Gleg's day there was no incongruous new fashion smartness no plate glass in shop windows no fresh stucco-facing or other fallacious attempts to make fine old red-stained oaks wear the air of a town that sprang up yesterday the shop windows were small and unpretending for the farmers' wives and daughters who came to do their shopping on market days were not to be withdrawn from their regular well-known shops and the tradesmen had nowhere as intended for customers who would go on their way and be seen no more ah, even Mrs. Gleg's day seems far back in the past now separated from us by changes that widened the years war and the rumor of war had then died out from the minds of men and if they were ever thought of by the farmers and dragged great coats who shook the grain out of their sample bags and buzzed over it in the full marketplace it was as a state of things that belonged to a past golden age when prices were high surely that time was gone forever when the broad river could bring up unwelcome ships Russia was the only place where the linseed came from the more the better making grist for the great vertical millstone to their sith-like arms roaring and grinding carefully sweeping as if an informing soul were in them the Catholics, bad harvests and the mysterious fluctuations of trade were the three evils mankind had to fear even the floods had not been great of late years the mine of St. Augs did not look extensively before or after it inherited a long past without thinking of it and had no eyes for the spirits that walked the streets since the centuries when St. Aug with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow had been seen on the wide water so many memories had been left behind and had gradually vanished like the receding hilltops and the present time was like the level plain where men lose their belief in volcanoes and earthquakes thinking tomorrow will be as yesterday and the giant forces that used to shake the earth are forever laid to sleep the days were gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by their faith and change it the Catholics were formidable because they would lay a whole of government and property and burn men alive not because any sane and honest parishioner of St. Augs could be brought to believe in the Pope one aged person remembered how a rude multitude had been swayed when John Wesley preached in the Catholic market but for a long while it had not been expected of preachers that they should shake the souls of men an occasional burst of fervor dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism was the only symptom of a zeal and suited to sober times when men had done with change Protestantism sat at ease unmindful of schisms careless of proselytism dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew and a business connection and a churchmanship only wondered contemptuously at dissent as a foolish habit to families in the grocery and chandluring lines though not incompatible with prosperous wholesale dealing but with a Catholic question had come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm the elderly rector had become occasionally historical and argumentative and Mr. Spray the independent minister had begun to preach political sermons in which he distinguished with much subtlety between his fervent relief and the right of Catholics to the franchise and his fervent belief in their eternal perdition most of Mr. Spray's hearers however were incapable of following his subtleties and many old-fashioned dissenters were much pained by his siding with the Catholics while others thought he had better let politics alone public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Augs and men who busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some suspicion as dangerous characters they were usually persons who had little or no business of their own to manage or if they had were likely enough to become insolvent this was a general aspect of things at St. Augs in Mrs. Glegg's day and at that particular period in her family history when she had had a quarrel with Mr. Tulliver it was a time when ignorance was much more comfortable than at present and was received with all the honors and very good society without being obliged to dress itself in an elaborate costume of knowledge a time when cheap periodicals were not and when country surgeons never thought of asking their female patients if they were fond of reading but simply took it for granted that they preferred gossip a time when ladies in rich silk gowns wore large pockets in which they carried a mutton bone to secure them against cramp Mrs. Glegg carried such a bone which she had inherited from her grandmother with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty like a suit of armor and a silver-headed walking stick for the Dodson family had been respectable for many generations Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor in her excellent house at St. Augs so that she had two points of view from which she could observe the weakness of a fellow being and reinforce her thankfulness for her own exceptional strength of mind from her front window she could look down the Toften Road leading out of St. Augs and note the growing tendency to getting about in the wives of men not retired from business together with a practice of wearing woven cotton stockings which opened a dreary prospect for the coming generation and from her back windows she could look down the pleasant garden and orchard which stretched to the river and observed a folly of Mr. Glegg in spending his time among them flowers and vegetables for Mr. Glegg having retired from active business as a wool stapler for the purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life had found his last occupation so much more severe than his business that he had been driven into amateur hard labour as a dissipation and habitually relaxed by doing a work of two ordinary gardeners the economising of gardeners' wages might perhaps have induced Mrs. Glegg to wink at this folly if it were possible for a healthy female mind even to simulate respect for a husband's hobby but it is well known that this conjugal complacency belongs only to the weaker portion of the sex who was scarcely alive to the responsibilities of a wife as a constituted check on her husband's pleasures that are hardly ever of a rational or commendable kind Mr. Glegg on his side too had a double source of mental occupation which gave every promise of being inexhaustible on the one hand he surprised himself by his discoveries in natural history finding that his piece of garden ground contained wonderful caterpillars, slugs and insects which so far as he had heard had never before attracted human observation he noticed remarkable coincidences between the zoological phenomena and the great events of that time as for example that before the burning of York Minster there had been mysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the rose trees together with an unusual prevalence of slugs which he had been puzzled to know the meaning of until it flashed upon him with this melancholy conflagration Mr. Glegg had an unusual amount of mental activity which when disengaged from the wool business naturally made itself a pathway in other directions and his second subject of meditation was the contrariness of the female mind as typically exhibited in Mrs. Glegg that a creature made in a genealogical sense out of a man's rib in this particular case with no respectability without any trouble of her own should be normally in a state of contradiction to the blandest propositions and even to the most accommodating concessions was a mystery in the scheme of things to which he had often in vain sought a clue in the early chapters of Genesis Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as a handsome embodiment of female prudence and thrift and the self of a money-getting, money-keeping turn had calculated on much conjugal harmony but in that curious compound the feminine character it may easily happen that the flavour is unpleasant in spite of excellent ingredients and a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with a seasoning that quite spoils its relish Now, good Mr. Glegg himself was stingy in the most amiable manner his neighbours called him Nier which always means that the person in question is a lovable skin-flint If you express the preference for cheese-parrings Mr. Glegg would remember to save them for you with a good-natured delight in gratifying your palate and he was given to pet all animals which required no appreciable keep There was no humbug or hypocrisy about Mr. Glegg his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the sale of a widow's furniture which a five-pound note from his side pocket would have prevented but a donation of five pounds to a person in a small way of life would have seemed to him a mad kind of lavishness rather than charity which had always presented itself to him as a contribution of small aid not a neutralizing of misfortune and Mr. Glegg was just as fond of saving other people's money as his own he would have ridden as far around to avoid a turnpike when his expenses were to be paid for him as when they were to come out of his own pocket and he was quite zealous in trying to induce in different acquaintances to adopt a cheap substitute for blacking this inalienable habit of saving as an end in itself belonged to the industrious man of business of a former generation who made their fortunes slowly almost as the tracking of the fox belongs to the Harrier it constituted them a race which is nearly lost in these days of rapid money-getting when lavishness comes close on the back of want in old-fashioned times an independence was hardly ever made without a little miserliness as a condition and you would have found that quality in every provincial district combined with characters as various as the fruits from which you can extract acid the true Harpagons were always marked in exceptional characters not so the worthy taxpayers who having once pinched from real necessity retained even in the midst of their comfortable retirement with their wall fruit and wine bins the habit of regarding life as an ingenious process of nibbling out one's livelihood without leaving any perceptible deficit and who would have been as immediately prompted to give up a newly taxed luxury when they had had their clear 500 year as when they had only 500 pounds of capital Mr. Gleg was one of these men found so impracticable by chancellors of the exchequer and knowing this he will be the better able to understand why he had not swerved from the conviction that he had made an eligible marriage in spite of the two pungent seasonings that nature had given to the eldest Miss Dodson's virtues a man with an affectionate disposition who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman would have suited him so well and does a little daily snapping and quarreling without any sense of alienation Mr. Gleg being of a reflective turn and no longer occupied with wool had much wandering meditation on a peculiar constitution of the female mind as unfolded to him in his domestic life and yet he thought Mrs. Gleg's household were ways a model for her sex it struck him as a pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their table napkins with the same tightness and emphasis that Mrs. Gleg did if their pastry had a less leathery consistency and their damson cheese a less venerable hardness than hers nay even the peculiar combination of grocery and drug like odors in Mrs. Gleg's private cupboard impressed him as the only right thing in the way of cupboard smells I am not sure that he would not have longed for the quarreling again if it had ceased for an entire week and it is certain that an acquiescent mild wife would have left his meditations comparatively Jejun and Baron of mystery Mr. Gleg's unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in this that it pained him more to see his wife at variance with others than to be in a state of cavill with her himself and the quarrel between her and Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that it quite nullified the pleasure he would otherwise have had in a state of his early cabbages as he walked in his garden before breakfast the next morning still he went into breakfast with some slight hope that now Mrs. Gleg had slept upon it her anger might be subdued enough to give way to her usually a strong sense of family decorum she had been used to boast that there had never been any of those deadly quarrels among the Dotsons which had disgraced other families that no Dotson had ever been cut off with a shilling and no cousin of the Dotsons this owned as indeed why should they be for they had no cousins who had not money out at use or some houses of their own at the very least there was one evening cloud which had always disappeared from Mrs. Gleg's brow when she sat at the breakfast table it was a fuzzy front of curls for as she occupied herself in household matters in the morning it would have been a mere extravagance to put on anything so superfluous to the making of leathery pastry as a fuzzy curled front by half past ten decorum demanded the front until then Mrs. Gleg could economize it and society would never be neither wiser but the absence of that cloud only left it more apparent that the cloud of severity remained and Mr. Gleg perceiving this as he sat down to his milk porridge which it was his old frugal habit to stem his morning hunger with prudently resolved to leave the first remark to Mrs. Gleg less to sow delicate an article as a lady's temper the slightest touch should do mischief people who seem to enjoy their ill temper have a way of keeping it in fine condition by inflicting provisions on themselves that was Mrs. Gleg's way she made her tea weaker than usual this morning and declined butter it was a hard case that a vigorous mood for quarrelling so highly capable of using an opportunity should not meet with a single remark from Mr. Gleg on which to exercise itself but by and by it appeared that his silence would answer the purpose for he heard himself apostrophize it last in that tone particular to the wife of one's bosom well Mr. Gleg it's a poor return I get for making you the wife I've made you all these years if this is the way I'm to be treated I'd better had known it before my poor father died and then when I'd wanted a home I should have gone elsewhere as the choice was offered me Mr. Gleg paused from his porridge and looked up not with any new amazement but simply with that quiet habitual wonder with which we regard constant mysteries why Mrs. G what have I done now done now Mr. Gleg done now I'm sorry for you not seeing his way to any pertinent answer Mr. Gleg reverted to his porridge there's husbands in the world continued Mrs. Gleg after a pause I sort of known how to do something different deciding with everybody else against their own wives perhaps I'm wrong and you can teach me better but I always heard as it's the husband's place to stand by the wife instead of rejoicing and triumphant when folks insult her now what call have you to say that said Mr. Gleg rather warmly for though a kind man he was not as meek as Moses when did I rejoice with triumph over you there's ways of doing things worse than speaking out plain Mr. Gleg at sooner you tell me to my face as you make lights of me than try to make out as everybody's in the right but me and come to your breakfast in the morning as I've hardly slept an hour this night there's the dirt under your feet sock at you said Mr. Gleg in a tone of angry facetiousness you're like a tipsy man as things everybody's had too much about himself don't lower yourself with using coarse language to me Mr. Gleg it makes you look very small though you can't see yourself said Mrs. Gleg in a tone of energetic compassion a man in your place should set an example and talk more sensible yes but will you listen to sense retorted Mr. Gleg sharply the best sense I can talk to you is what I said last night as you're in the wrong to think of calling in your money when it's safe enough if you'd let it alone all because of a bit of a tiff and I was in the hopes you'd add alter your mind this morning but if you'd like to call it in and do it in a hurry now and read more enmity in the family but wait till there's a pretty mortgage to be had without any trouble you'd have to set a lawyer to work now to find an investment and make no end of expense Mrs. Gleg felt there was really something in this but she tossed her head and admitted a guttural interjection to indicate that her silence was only an armistice not a piece and in fact hostility again I'll thank you for my cup of tea now Mrs. G said Mr. Gleg seeing as she did not proceed to give it to him as usual when he had finished his porridge she lifted the teapot with a slight toss of the head and said I'm glad to hear you'll thank me Mr. Gleg a little thanks I get for what I do for folks in this world though there's never a woman on your side of the family Mr. Gleg as it's fit to stand up with me and I'd say it if it was on my dying bed not but what I've always conducted my civility or kin and there isn't one of them can say the contrary though my echoes they aren't and nobody shall make me say it you'd better leave finding fault with my kin till you've left of quarrelling with your own Mrs. G said Mr. Gleg with angry sarcasm I'll trouble you for the milk jug that says false a word as ever you spoke Mr. Gleg said the lady pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness as much as to say if he wanted milk he should have it with a vengeance and you know it's false I'm not the woman to quarrel with my own kin you may for I've known you to do it why what did you call it yesterday then leaving your sister's house in a tantrum I don't quarrel with my sister Mr. Gleg and it's false to say Mr. Tuleva is none of my blood and it was him quarrelled with me and drove me out the house but perhaps you have had me stay and be swore at Mr. Gleg perhaps he was vexed not to hear more abuse and foul language poured out upon your own wife but let me tell you it's your disgrace did ever anybody hear the like this parish said Mr. Gleg getting hot a woman with everything provided for her and allowed to keep her on money the same as if it was settled on her and with a gig new stuffed in line at no end of expense provided for when I die beyond anything she could expect to go on in this way biting and snapping like a mad dog it's beyond everything has got a mighty share made women's soul these last words were uttered in a tone of sorrowful agitation Mr. Gleg pushed his tea from him and tapped the table with both hands well Mr. Gleg if those are your feelings it's best they should be known said Mrs. Gleg taking off her napkin and folding it in an excited manner but if you talk of my being provided for beyond what I could expect I beg leave to tell you as I'd a right to expect the many things as I don't find and as to my being like a mad dog it's well if you're not cried shame on by the country for your treatment of me for it's what I can't bear and I won't bear here Mrs. Gleg's voice intimated that she was going to cry and breaking off from speech she rang the bell violently Sally, she said rising from her chair and speaking in rather a choked voice light a fire upstairs and put the blinds down Mr. Gleg you'll please do order what you'd like for dinner I have drool Mrs. Gleg walked across the room to the small bookcase and took down back the saint's everlasting rest which she carried with her upstairs it was the book she was accustomed to lay open before her on special occasions on wet Sunday mornings or when she heard of a death in a family or when, as in this case her quarrel with Mr. Gleg had been set an octave higher than usual but Mrs. Gleg carried something else upstairs with her which, together with the saint's rest and the gruel may have had some influence in gradually calming her feelings and making it possible for her to endure existence on the ground floor shortly before tea time this was partly Mr. Gleg's suggestion that she would do well to let her 500 lies still under a good investment turned up and further, his parentetic hint at his handsome provision for her in case of his death Mr. Gleg, like all men of his stamp was extremely reticent about his will and Mrs. Gleg, in her gloomier moments had forebodings that like other husbands of whom she had heard he might cherish the mean project of heightening her grief at his death by leaving her poorly off in which case she was firmly resolved that she would have scarcely any weeper and would cry no more than if he had been a second husband but if he had really shown her any testamentary tenderness it would be affecting to think of him poor man when he was gone and even his foolish fuss about the flowers and garden stuff and his insistence on a subject of snails would be touching when it was once fairly at an end to survive Mr. Gleg eulogistically of him as a man who might have his weaknesses but who had done the right thing by her notwithstanding his numerous poor relations to have sums of interest coming in more frequently and secreted in various corners baffling to the most ingenious of thieves for to Mrs. Gleg's mind banks and strongboxes would have nullified the pleasure of property she might as well have taken her food in capsules finally to be looked up to by her own family and the neighborhood so as no woman can ever hope to be who has not the praetorite and present dignity comprised in being a widow well left all this made a flattering and conciliatory view of the future so that when good Mr. Gleg restored to good humor by much hoeing and moved by the side of his wife's anti-chair with her knitting rolled up in the corner went upstairs to her and observed that the bell had been tolling for poor Mr. Morton Mrs. Gleg answered magnanimously quite as if she had been an uninjured woman ah then there will be a good business for somebody to take to Baxter had been open at least eight hours by this time for it was nearly five o'clock and if people are to quarrel often it follows as a corollary that their quarrels cannot be protracted beyond certain limits Mr. and Mrs. Gleg talked quite amicably about the Tullivers that evening Mr. Gleg went the length of admitting that Tulliver was a sad man for getting into hot water and was like enough to run through his property and Mrs. Gleg meeting this acknowledgement halfway declared that it was beneath her to take notice of such a man's conduct and that for her sister's sake she would let him keep the 500 a while longer for when she put it out on a mortgage she should only get four percent end of chapter 12 book number one boy and girl recording by Breathe