The Mill on the Floss

s Secon

an at questionable objects in a truly ingenious bovine manner; but he had blundered on Philip's tenderest point, and had caused him as much acute pain as if he had studied the means with the nicest precision and the most envenomed spite. Tom saw no reason why they should not make up this quarrel as they had done many others, by behaving as if nothing had happened; for though he had never before said to Philip that his father was a rogue, this idea had so habitually made part of his feeling as to the relation between himself and his dubious schoolfellow, who he could ne

ad sent her word that Philip knew no end of stories,–not stupid stories like hers; and she was convinced now from her own observation that he must be very clever; she hoped he would think her rather clever too, when she came to talk to him. Maggie, moreover, had rather a tenderness for deformed things; she preferred the wry

re dinner. "He couldn't choose his father, you know; and I've read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad c

s father was a rogue. And I'd a right to tell him so, for it was true; and he began it, with calling me

, who in this first day of me

l you about by-and-by, not y

ith two volumes, with a look of contented diligence that excited Maggie's curiosity; he did not look at all as if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a right angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the other; and Philip, looking off his book once toward the fire-place, caught the pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon

hem away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the ar

ght suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered Tom's prelimina

his most coaxing tone; "It's

put hers round his waist, and twined to

ll anybody, you know," said Tom

ation had settled for the moment on the

r face, while I reach it out," he added, as he locked the bedroom door behin

I shall," said Maggie, begi

y thing," said Tom. "Go and hide y

disdainfully; and she buried her face in

Maggie kept her face buried without the aid of principle, for in that dream-suggestive attitude she had soon forgotten wher

efore the looking-glass (Philip had once told him of a man who had a horseshoe frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to make a horseshoe on his forehead), he had had recourse to that unfailing source of the terrible, burnt cork, and had made himself a pair of black eyebrows that met in a satisfactory manner over his nose, and were matched by a less carefully adjusted blackness abou

keenly; but in the next she laughed, clapped her hands together, an

red a more direct appeal to its sense of the terrible, and Tom prepared for his master-stroke. Frowning with a doubl

dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner. "I shall

ediately checked as inconsistent with the severity of a great warrior. Slowly he let do

bent, and the sword still pointing toward Maggie, who, trembling, and with tear-fi

was only Maggie, proceeded, with the utmost exertion of his force, to such an exhibit

Maggie, at the first movement of the sword. "

the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was a rush of footsteps toward the room. Mr. Stelling, from his upstairs study, was the first to enter. He found both the children on the floor. Tom had fainted, and Maggie was shaking him by the collar of his jacket, screaming, with wi