The Mill on the Floss

s Teraphim, or

and she was thinking with some trembling that her father had perhaps missed her, and aske

r; that was where the smell came from. It was very strange; could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her mother there? If so, she must be told th

ad some vague recollection, sitting in his father'

ned,–sinking into the condition of poor working people. It seemed only natural this should happen, since his father had lost all his property, and he thought of no more special cause for this particular form of misfortune than the loss of the lawsuit. But the im

of his mouth, with rough, embarrassed civility. The tw

is the matter?" Then, with a sudden undefined dread lest this stranger might have something to do with a change in her father, she rushed upstairs, checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off

she whispered. The

Father is lying quiet; let us go and lo

ttic which Maggie had left unsearched; it was the storeroom, where her mother kept all her linen

along the passage, opened the door of th

, and the best china was laid out on the top of the closed linen-chest; spoons and skewers and ladles were spread in rows on the shelves; and the poor woman

m, and started

this day! We're ruined–everything's going to be sold up–to think as your father should ha' marr

ding it a little way to look at the pattern, while the children stood by in mute wretche

I remember standing at the door and seeing him come, before I ever thought o' marrying your father! And the pattern as I chose myself, and bleached so beautiful, and I marked 'em so as nobody ever saw such marking,–they must cut the cloth to get it out, for it's a particular stitch. And they're all to be sold, and go into strange p

there was an angry reaction immedi

o they know about it? They'll never let your l

do with." (Here Mrs. Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloths in the chest, folding and stroking them automatically.) "And your uncle Glegg's been too, and he says things must be bought in for us to lie down on, but he must talk to your aunt; and they're all coming to consult. But I know they'll none of 'em take my chany," she added, turning toward the cups and saucers, "for they all

eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said in a deprecating way, still ha

ould I do? I've had to sit by while my own fortin's been spent, and what should ha' been m

to blame, hitherto kept entirely in abeyance toward his father by the predisposition to think him always right, simply on the ground that he was Tom Tulliver's father, was turned into this new channel by his mother's plaints; and with his indignatio

itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his aunts,

y. "I shall soon be able to get money

Then, looking round sadly, "But I shouldn't ha' minded so

her out from the common calamity. She had become almost indifferent to her mother's habitual depreciation of her, but she was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive, that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no means made up of unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for herself where she loved strongly. She burst out at la

bed. Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blam

ving remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her

s, by this time. But he presently went into his father's room, and the sight there touched him in a way that effaced the slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie saw h