And Maggie’s graces of mind and body fed his
gloom. He sat patiently enough while she read
him a chapter, or said something timidly when they
were alone together about trouble being turned into
a blessing. He took it all as part of his daughter’s
goodness, which made his misfortunes the sadder to
him because they damaged her chance in life.
In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfied
vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings;
Mr. Tulliver did not want spiritual consolation—he
wanted to shake off the degradation of debt, and to
have his revenge.
Wheat and Tares
In the Red Deeps
The family sitting-room was a long room with a window
at each end; one looking toward the croft and along
the Ripple to the banks of the Floss, the other into
the mill-yard. Maggie was sitting with her work
against the latter window when she saw Mr. Wakem entering
the yard, as usual, on his fine black horse; but not
alone, as usual. Some one was with him,—a
figure in a cloak, on a handsome pony. Maggie
had hardly time to feel that it was Philip come back,
before they were in front of the window, and he was
raising his hat to her; while his father, catching
the movement by a side-glance, looked sharply round
at them both.
Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her
work upstairs; for Mr. Wakem sometimes came in and
inspected the books, and Maggie felt that the meeting
with Philip would be robbed of all pleasure in the
presence of the two fathers. Some day, perhaps,
she could see him when they could just shake hands,
and she could tell him that she remembered his goodness
to Tom, and the things he had said to her in the old
days, though they could never be friends any more.
It was not at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip
again; she retained her childish gratitude and pity
toward him, and remembered his cleverness; and in
the early weeks of her loneliness she had continually
recalled the image of him among the people who had
been kind to her in life, often wishing she had him
for a brother and a teacher, as they had fancied it
might have been, in their talk together. But that
sort of wishing had been banished along with other
dreams that savored of seeking her own will; and she
thought, besides, that Philip might be altered by
his life abroad,—he might have become worldly,
and really not care about her saying anything to him
now. And yet his face was wonderfully little
altered,—it was only a larger, more manly
copy of the pale, small-featured boy’s face,
with the gray eyes, and the boyish waving brown hair;
there was the old deformity to awaken the old pity;
and after all her meditations, Maggie felt that she
really should like to say a few words to him.
He might still be melancholy, as he always used to
be, and like her to look at him kindly. She wondered
