Yes, she knew she must go back to all that, but at present she must weep. Screening her face she sobbed more steadily than she had yet done, her shoulders rising and falling with great regularity. It was this figure that her husband saw when, having reached the polished Sphinx, having entangled himself with a man selling picture postcards, he turned; the stanza instantly stopped. He came up to her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said, “Dearest.” His voice was supplicating. But she shut her face away from him, as much as to say, “You can’t possibly understand.”

We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health andspirits had long been restored, and they gained additionalstrength from the salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidentsof our progress, and the conversation of my friend. Study hadbefore secluded me from the intercourse of my fellow-creatures,and rendered me unsocial; but Clerval called forth the betterfeelings of my heart; he again taught me to love the aspect ofnature, and the cheerful faces of children. Excellent friend! howsincerely did you love me, and endeavour to elevate my mind,until it was on a level with your own. A selfish pursuit hadcramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and affectionwarmed and opened my senses; I became the same happy crea-ture who, a few years ago, loving and beloved by all, had nosorrow or care. When happy, inanimate nature had the power ofbestowing on me the most delightful sensations. A serene skyand verdant fields filled me with ecstacy. The present season wasindeed divine; the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, whilethose of summer were already in bud: I was undisturbed bythoughts which during the preceding year had pressed upon me,notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with aninvincible burden.

the various relationships which bind one human being to anotherin mutual bonds.1“But where were my friends and relations? No father hadwatched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smilesand caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blindvacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliestremembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion.I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed anyintercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, tobe answered only with groans

“This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accus-tomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my ownconsumption; but when I found that in doing this I inflicted painon the cottagers, I abstained, and satisfied myself with berries,nuts, and roots, which I gathered from a neighbouring wood.“I discovered also another means through which I was enabledto assist their labours. I found that the youth spent a great part ofeach day in collecting wood for the family fire; and, during thenight, I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered,and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of severaldays

when theywere unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathizedin their joys.

“These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feel-ings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and mag-nificent, yet so vicious and base?3He appeared at one time amere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can beconceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous manappeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; tobe base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared thelowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blindmole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceivehow one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even whythere were laws and governments; but when I heard details of viceand bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away withdisgust and loathing.

“My days were spent in close attention, that I might morespeedily master the language; and I may boast that I improvedmore rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little, andconversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and couldimitate almost every word that was spoken.

And what was I? Of my creation and creator I wasabsolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, nofriends, no kind of property.1I was, besides, endowed with afigure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of thesame nature as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsistupon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with lessinjury to my frame; my stature far exceeded their’s. When Ilooked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then amonster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, andwhom all men disowned?2

My spirits wereelevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past wasblotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and thefuture gilded by bright rays of hope, and anticipations of joy.

I’ve got a great deal more money than you, because I’m a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you’re only a girl.”

“Tom told me to take care of ’em, and I forgot. What shall I do?”

“Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and chattering,” said her mother. “Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold your tongue, do. But,” added Mrs Tulliver, who had her own alarm awakened, “is it so far off as I couldn’t wash him and mend him?”

Not but what, if the world had been left as God made it, I could ha’ seen my way, and held my own wi’ the best of ’em; but things have got so twisted round and wrapped up i’ unreasonable words, as aren’t a bit like ’em, as I’m clean at fault, often an’ often. Everything winds about so—the more straightforrad you are, the more you’re puzzled.”

Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by going into a dark corner behind her father’s chair, and nursing her doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom’s absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on it that the waxen cheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.

“Oh, I’ll tell you what that means. It’s a dreadful picture, isn’t it? But I can’t help looking at it. That old woman in the water’s a witch,—they’ve put her in to find out whether she’s a witch or no; and if she swims she’s a witch, and if she’s drowned—and killed, you know—she’s innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she’d go to heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with his arms akimbo, laughing,—oh, isn’t he ugly?—I’ll tell you what he is. He’s the Devil really” (here Maggie’s voice became louder and more emphatic), “and not a right blacksmith; for the Devil takes the shape of wicked men, and walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he’s oftener in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at ’em, they’d run away, and he couldn’t make ’em do what he pleased.”

“A woman’s no business wi’ being so clever; it’ll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!”—here the exultation was clearly recovering the mastery,—“she’ll read the books and understand ’em better nor half the folks as are growed up.”

om, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors, and of making the future in some way tragic by his wickedness. This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang within the fender, and going up between her father’s knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice,— “Father, Tom wouldn’t be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn’t.”

I shall give Tom an eddication an’ put him to a business, as he may make a nest for himself, an’ not want to push me out o’ mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I’m dead an’ gone. I sha’n’t be put off wi’ spoon-meat afore I’ve lost my teeth.”

in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual.

“but I’m sure the child’s half an idiot i’ some things; for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she’s gone for, an’ perhaps ’ull sit down on the floor i’ the sunshine an’ plait her hair an’ sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur’, all the while I’m waiting for her downstairs. That niver run i’ my family, thank God! no more nor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I don’t like to fly i’ the face o’ Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but one gell, an’ her so comical.” “Pooh, nonsense!” said Mr Tulliver; “she’s a straight, black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see. I don’t know i’ what she’s behind other folks’s children; and she can read almost as well as the parson.” “But her hair won’t curl all I can do with it, and she’s so franzy about having it put i’ paper, and I’ve such work as never was to make her stand and have it pinched with th’ irons.” “Cut it off—cut it off short,” said the father, rashly.

That’s the worst on’t wi’ crossing o’ breeds: you can never justly calkilate what’ll come on’t. The little un takes after my side, now: she’s twice as ’cute as Tom. Too ’cute for a woman, I’m afraid,” continued Mr Tulliver, turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the other. “It’s no mischief much while she’s a little un; but an over-’cute woman’s no better nor a long-tailed sheep,—she’ll fetch none the bigger price for that.”

I want Tom to be such a sort o’ man as Riley, you know,—as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o’ words as don’t mean much, so as you can’t lay hold of ’em i’ law; and a good solid knowledge o’ business too.”

It ’ud be a help to me wi’ these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn’t make a downright lawyer o’ the lad,—I should be sorry for him to be a raskill,—but a sort o’ engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o’ them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool. They’re pretty nigh all one, and they’re not far off being even wi’ the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i’ the face as hard as one cat looks another. He’s none frightened at him.”

It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.