“You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?”
he said, bending to look in her face with anxiety.
It was very charming to be taken care of in that kind,
graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than
one’s self. Maggie had never felt just
in the same way before.
When they reached home again, they found uncle and
aunt Pullet seated with Mrs. Tulliver in the drawing-room,
and Stephen hurried away, asking leave to come again
in the evening.
“And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell
that you took away,” said Lucy. “I
want Maggie to hear your best songs.”
Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would
be invited to go out with Lucy, probably to Park House,
was much shocked at the shabbiness of her clothes,
which when witnessed by the higher society of St.
Ogg’s, would be a discredit to the family, that
demanded a strong and prompt remedy; and the consultation
as to what would be most suitable to this end from
among the superfluities of Mrs. Pullet’s wardrobe
was one that Lucy as well as Mrs. Tulliver entered
into with some zeal. Maggie must really have an
evening dress as soon as possible, and she was about
the same height as aunt Pullet.
“But she’s so much broader across the
shoulders than I am, it’s very ill-convenient,”
said Mrs. Pullet, “else she might wear that beautiful
black brocade o’ mine without any alteration;
and her arms are beyond everything,” added Mrs.
Pullet, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie’s
large round arm, “She’d never get my sleeves
on.”
“Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress,”
said Lucy. “I don’t mean Maggie to
have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black lace
for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful.”
“Maggie’s arms are a pretty shape,”
said Mrs. Tulliver. “They’re like
mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish
she’d had our family skin.”
“Nonsense, aunty!” said Lucy, patting
her aunt Tulliver’s shoulder, “you don’t
understand those things. A painter would think
Maggie’s complexion beautiful.”
“Maybe, my dear,” said Mrs. Tulliver,
submissively. “You know better than I do.
Only when I was young a brown skin wasn’t thought
well on among respectable folks.”
“No,” said uncle Pullet, who took intense
interest in the ladies’ conversation as he sucked
his lozenges. “Though there was a song about
the ‘Nut-brown Maid’ too; I think she was
crazy,—crazy Kate,—but I can’t
justly remember.”
“Oh dear, dear!” said Maggie, laughing,
but impatient; “I think that will be the end
of my brown skin, if it is always to be talked
about so much.”
Confidential Moments
When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it
appeared that she was not at all inclined to undress.
She set down her candle on the first table that presented
itself, and began to walk up and down her room, which
was a large one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid
step, which showed that the exercise was the instinctive
vent of strong excitement. Her eyes and cheeks
had an almost feverish brilliancy; her head was thrown
backward, and her hands were clasped with the palms
outward, and with that tension of the arms which is
apt to accompany mental absorption.
