prompt:
Chapter: 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 if he remembered how he used to like her eyes; with that
thought Maggie glanced toward the square looking-glass which was
condemned to hang with its face toward the wall, and she half started
from her seat to reach it down; but she checked herself and snatched
up her work, trying to repress the rising wishes by forcing her memory
to recall snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father
returning along the road, and she could go down again.

It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to lengthen the
daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the
following she was so busy with work which must be finished that she
never went beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by
sitting out of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not
obliged to go to St. Ogg's, was to a spot that lay beyond what was
called the "Hill,"--an insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees,
lying along the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote
Mill. Insignificant I call it, because in height it was hardly more
than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature makes a mere bank
a means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine
this high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some
quarter of a mile along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the
pleasant fields behind it, bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where
this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off
and led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very
capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted
stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of
grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days
Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and
needed all her confidence in Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an
excursion thither,--visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting
every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which any broken
ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest
habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a
grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant
from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like
tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing
the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly
blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, too, the dog-roses were
in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should
direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on
the first day she was free to wander at her will,--a pleasure she
loved so well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she
thought she ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.

You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite turning and enters
the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall
figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk
shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of
being unseen she takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One
would certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her
seventeenth year--perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of the
glance from which all search and unrest seem to have departed; perhaps
because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early womanhood.
Youth and health have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary
hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard
floor for a penance have left no obvious trace; the eyes are liquid,
the brown cheek is firm and round, the full lips are red. With her
dark coloring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to
have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is
looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of
uneasiness in looking at her,--a sense of opposing elements, of which
a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression,
such as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of
keeping with the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a
sudden, passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like
a damp fire leaping out again when all seemed safe.

But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly
enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees, and
thought that those broken ends of branches were the records of past
storms, which had only made the red stems soar higher. But while her
eyes were still turned upward, she became conscious of a moving shadow
cast by the evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down
with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised his hat,
and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and put out his hand.
Maggie, too, colored with surprise, which soon gave way to pleasure.
She put out her hand and looked down at the deformed figure before her
with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of
her child's feelings,--a memory that was always strong in her. She was
the first to speak.

"You startled me," she said, smiling faintly; "I never meet any one
here. How came you to be walking here? Did you come to meet _me?_"

It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child
again.

"Yes, I did," said Philip, still embarrassed; "I wished to see you
very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your
house to see if you would come out, but you never came. Then I watched
again to-day, and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and
came down the bank, behind there. I hope you will not be displeased
with me."

"No," said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as if she meant
Philip to accompany her, "I'm very glad you came, for I wished very
much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. I've never forgotten
how good you were long ago to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure that
you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of
trouble since then, and I think _that_ makes one think more of what
happened before the trouble came."

"I can't believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought
of you," said Philip, timidly. "Do you know, when I was away, I made a
picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you said
you would not forget me."

Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it.
Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks
hanging down behind her ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy
eyes. It was a water-color sketch, of real merit as a portrait.

"Oh dear," said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, "what a
queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that way,
in that pink frock. I really _was_ like a gypsy. I dare say I am now,"
she added, after a little pause; "am I like what you expected me to
be?"

The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright
glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really
did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising
again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her
eyes and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said
quietly, "No, Maggie."

The light died out a little from Maggie's face, and there was a slight
trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn
away her head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said
slowly:

"You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be."

"Am I?" said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She
turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight
before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to
this new idea. Girls are so accustomed to think of dress as the main
ground of vanity, that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie
had thought more of abandoning all care for adornment than of
renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with
elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she
could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the
silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that
sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed from among the
fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollow almost surrounded by an
amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them
had brightened, Maggie's face had lost its glow.

She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip
again, she said in a serious, sad voice:

"I wish we could have been friends,--I mean, if it would have been
good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in
everything; I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little.
The old books went; and Tom is different, and my father. It is like
death. I must part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And
I must part with you; we must never take any notice of each other
again. That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to let you
know that Tom and I can't do as we like about such things, and that if
I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it is not out of envy or
pride--or--or any bad feeling."

Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on,
and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of
pain on Philip's face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish
self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.

"I know; I see all that you mean," he said, in a voice that had become
feebler from discouragement; "I know what there is to keep us apart on
both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,--don't you be angry with me,
I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts,--it is not right to
sacrifice everything to other people's unreasonable feelings. I would
give up a great deal for _my_ father; but I would not give up a
friendship or--or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish
of his that I didn't recognize as right."

"I don't know," said Maggie, musingly. "Often, when I have been angry
and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up
anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I
could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it
was an evil state of mind. I'm quite sure that whatever I might do, I
should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for myself,
rather than have made my father's life harder to him."

"But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other
sometimes?" said Philip. He was going to say something else, but
checked himself.

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't like it. Don't ask me why, or anything about
it," said Maggie, in a distressed tone. "My father feels so strongly
about some things. He is not at all happy."

"No more am I," said Philip, impetuously; "I am not happy."

"Why?" said Maggie, gently. "At least--I ought not to ask--but I'm
very, very sorry."

Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any
longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and
bushes in silence. After that last word of Philip's, Maggie could not
bear to insist immediately on their parting.

"I've been a great deal happier," she said at last, timidly, "since I
have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and being
discontented because I couldn't have my own will. Our life is
determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up
wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing
what is given us to do."

"But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently. "It seems to
me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly
alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and
we _must_ hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them
until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to
be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I
want. That is pain to me, and always _will_ be pain, until my
faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are many
other things I long for,"--here Philip hesitated a little, and then
said,--"things that other men have, and that will always be denied me.
My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it; I would rather not
have lived."

"Oh, Philip," said Maggie, "I wish you didn't feel so." But her heart
began to beat with something of Philip's discontent.

"Well, then," said he, turning quickly round and fixing his gray eyes
entreatingly on her face, "I should be contented to live, if you would
let me see you sometimes." Then, checked by a fear which her face
suggested, he looked away again and said more calmly, "I have no
friend to whom I can tell everything, no one who cares enough about
me; and if I could only see you now and then, and you would let me
talk to you a little, and show me that you cared for me, and that we
may always be friends in heart, and help each other, then I might come
to be glad of life."

"But how can I see you, Philip?" said Maggie, falteringly. (Could she
really do him good? It would be very hard to say "good-by" this day,
and not speak to him again. Here was a new interest to vary the days;
it was so much easier to renounce the interest before it came.)

"If you would let me see you here sometimes,--walk with you here,--I
would be contented if it were only once or twice in a month. _That_
could injure no one's happiness, and it would sweeten my life.
Besides," Philip went on, with all the inventive astuteness of love at
one-and-twenty, "if there is any enmity between those who belong to
us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship; I
mean, that by our influence on both sides we might bring about a
healing of the wounds that have been made in the past, if I could know
everything about them. And I don't believe there is any enmity in my
own father's mind; I think he has proved the contrary."

Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under conflicting
thoughts. It seemed to her inclination, that to see Philip now and
then, and keep up the bond of friendship with him, was something not
only innocent, but good; perhaps she might really help him to find
contentment as she had found it. The voice that said this made sweet
music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent, monotonous
warning from another voice which she had been learning to obey,--the
warning that such interviews implied secrecy; implied doing something
she would dread to be discovered in, something that, if discovered,
must cause anger and pain; and that the admission of anything so near
doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell
out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading
her that the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and
that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury
of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk
from, because of an unjustifiable vindictiveness toward his
father,--poor Philip, whom some people would shrink from only because
he was deformed. The idea that he might become her lover or that her
meeting him could cause disapproval in that light, had not occurred to
her; and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough, saw it
with a certain pang, although it made her consent to his request the
less unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that
Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she
was a child.

"I can't say either yes or no," she said at last, turning round and
walking toward the way she come; "I must wait, lest I should decide
wrongly. I must seek for guidance."

"May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, or next week?"

"I think I had better write," said Maggie, faltering again. "I have to
go to St. Ogg's sometimes, and I can put the letter in the post."

"Oh no," said Philip eagerly; "that would not be so well. My father
might see the letter--and--he has not any enmity, I believe, but he
views things differently from me; he thinks a great deal about wealth
and position. Pray let me come here once more. _Tell_ me when it shall
be; or if you can't tell me, I will come as often as I can till I do
see you."

"I think it must be so, then," said Maggie, "for I can't be quite
certain of coming here any particular evening."

Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She was free
now to enjoy the minutes of companionship; she almost thought she
might linger a little; the next time they met she should have to pain
Philip by telling him her determination.

"I can't help thinking," she said, looking smilingly at him, after a
few moments of silence, "how strange it is that we should have met and
talked to each other, just as if it had been only yesterday when we
parted at Lorton. And yet we must both be very much altered in those
five years,--I think it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a
sort of feeling that I was the same Maggie? I was not quite so sure
that you would be the same; I know you are so clever, and you must
have seen and learnt so much to fill your mind; I was not quite sure
you would care about me now."

"I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I
might see you," said Philip,--"I mean, the same in everything that made
me like you better than any one else. I don't want to explain that; I
don't think any of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible
of can ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by which
they are arrived at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The
greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he
couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we feel it to
be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that
our understandings can make no complete inventory of. Certain strains
of music affect me so strangely; I can never hear them without their
changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would
last, I might be capable of heroisms."

"Ah! I know what you mean about music; _I_ feel so," said Maggie,
clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. "At least," she added, in
a saddened tone, "I used to feel so when I had any music; I never have
any now except the organ at church."

"And you long for it, Maggie?" said Philip, looking at her with
affectionate pity. "Ah, you can have very little that is beautiful in
your life. Have you many books? You were so fond of them when you were
a little girl."

They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-roses grew, and
they both paused under the charm of the faery evening light, reflected
from the pale pink clusters.

"No, I have given up books," said Maggie, quietly, "except a very,
very few."

Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was
looking at the back as he said:

"Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have liked to
take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because I am studying a
scene for a picture."

Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title; it revived an
old impression with overmastering force.

"'The Pirate,'" she said, taking the book from Philip's hands. "Oh, I
began that once; I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland, and
I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head,
and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I could never
make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what
is the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away from the
Shetland Isles,--I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough
sea."

Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes.

"Take that volume home with you, Maggie," said Philip, watching her
with delight. "I don't want it now. I shall make a picture of you
instead,--you, among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows."

Maggie had not heard a word he had said; she was absorbed in a page at
which she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it
back to Philip, shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to
say "avaunt" to floating visions.

"Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly; "it will give you
pleasure."

"No, thank you," said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and
walking on. "It would make me in love with this world again, as I used
to be; it would make me long to see and know many things; it would
make me long for a full life."

"But you will not always be shut up in your present lot; why should
you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism; I don't
like to see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge
are sacred and pure."

"But not for me, not for me," said Maggie, walking more hurriedly;
"because I should want too much. I must wait; this life will not last
long."

"Don't hurry away from me without saying 'good-by,' Maggie," said
Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she continued
still to walk along without speaking. "I must not go any farther, I
think, must I?"

"Oh no, I forgot; good-by," said Maggie, pausing, and putting out her
hand to him. The action brought her feeling back in a strong current
to Philip; and after they had stood looking at each other in silence
for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her
hand:

"I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is
very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing
it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care
about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks! I
remember saying to you that I thought you cared for me more than Tom
did."

"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would never love me
so well as you love your brother."

"Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply; "but then, you know, the first
thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of
the Floss, while he held my hand; everything before that is dark to
me. But I shall never forget you, though we must keep apart."

"Don't say so, Maggie," said Philip. "If I kept that little girl in my
mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in her? She ought not to
take herself quite away from me."

"Not if I were free," said Maggie; "but I am not, I must submit." She
hesitated a moment, and then added, "And I wanted to say to you, that
you had better not take more notice of my brother than just bowing to
him. He once told me not to speak to you again, and he doesn't change
his mind--Oh dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. Good-by." She
gave him her hand once more.

"I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie.
Have some feeling for _me_ as well as for others."

"Yes, yes, I have," said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly
disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philip's gaze after her
remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her still.

Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip went
home to do nothing but remember and hope. You can hardly help blaming
him severely. He was four or five years older than Maggie, and had a
full consciousness of his feeling toward her to aid him in foreseeing
the character his contemplated interviews with her would bear in the
opinion of a third person. But you must not suppose that he was
capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied
without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some
happiness into Maggie's life,--seeking this even more than any direct
ends for himself. He could give her sympathy; he could give her help.
There was not the slightest promise of love toward him in her manner;
it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown
him when she was twelve. Perhaps she would never love him; perhaps no
woman ever _could_ love him. Well, then, he would endure that; he
should at least have the happiness of seeing her, of feeling some
nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the possibility that she
_might_ love him; perhaps the feeling would grow, if she could come to
associate him with that watchful tenderness which her nature would be
so keenly alive to. If any woman could love him, surely Maggie was
that woman; there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no one
to claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a mind like hers should be
withering in its very youth, like a young forest-tree, for want of the
light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hinder
that, by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be
her guardian angel; he would do anything, bear anything, for her
sake--except not seeing her.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Maggie is sitting at home sewing when she sees Philip and Mr. Wakem outside. Maggie runs upstairs to avoid Mr. Wakem and wishes that she could see Philip without his father around some day. She reminisces about how she met Philip but tries to stop thinking about him by reciting some Christian hymns to herself. Maggie now goes outside for a walk. She heads to an old stone quarry known as the Red Deeps. We learn that Maggie is now seventeen years old, so a few years have passed. Maggie is beautiful but a little odd looking - her dark hair, skin, and eyes really set her apart from everyone else in the neighborhood. Suddenly Maggie comes upon Philip. Turns out Philip was kind of stalking her in the hopes of catching her alone. Philip ups the stalker factor by showing Maggie a picture he painted of her after he first met her years ago. He's been carrying this small picture around with him apparently. Getting weirder. He then tells Maggie that she's more beautiful than he expected her to be. Things are still getting weirder. Maggie tells Philip she wishes they could be friends, but between her extreme religious views and the whole family feud business, she doesn't see it working out. Philip is concerned by Maggie's self-sacrificial attitude and tells her it is wrong and unhealthy. Philip, the sort-of stalker, would know all about healthy lifestyles after all. Maggie and Philip get into a lengthy debate about duty and life. Maggie feels that she needs to sacrifice things even though it's hard for her. She says it's easier to lead her miserable life if she isn't hoping for anything better. Philip counters this by saying that life without hope is horrible and that Maggie needs to be true to herself. Philip wants them to remain friends and he says he can help Maggie and be a confidant for her and loan her books. Maggie is now conflicted - she doesn't want to hurt Philip's feelings but she is also worried about upsetting her family by seeing him. Plus she has trained herself to not do anything fun, so this whole friend business is freaking her out some. While Maggie has an internal debate, Philip presses the issue and asks to see her again. He tells Maggie that he's been devoted to her since her first met her. He then tries to give Maggie a novel to read after she tells him she has given up reading for fun. Maggie refuses the book and says that she'd lose all her powers of self-denial if she took it. Maggie should probably look into getting better super hero powers - self-denial is a lame one. Maggie tries to tell Philip goodbye and he keeps stalling her. Philip says he'll keep coming to the Red Deeps to see her and Maggie finally gets away. Philip hopes that Maggie could learn to love him someday.


prompt:
Chapter: Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb

While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own
soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows forever
rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling
with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests.
So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of
horses; inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted
hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling
their long, empty days with memories and fears; outside, the men, in
fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the
stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of
wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.

From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of whom you
would prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly wished; the
wagers are likely to be on his side, notwithstanding his small success
in the classics. For Tom had never desired success in this field of
enterprise; and for getting a fine flourishing growth of stupidity
there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects
in which it feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will bound
together his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his
personal ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts
and surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who watched him
closely, soon began to conceive hopes of him, and to be rather proud
that he had brought into the employment of the firm a nephew who
appeared to be made of such good commercial stuff. The real kindness
of placing him in the warehouse first was soon evident to Tom, in the
hints his uncle began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps
be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm
various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in
this place; and it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr.
Deane, when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step
in and sit with him an hour, and would pass that hour in much
lecturing and catechising concerning articles of export and import,
with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the relative
advantages to the merchants of St. Ogg's of having goods brought in
their own and in foreign bottoms,--a subject on which Mr. Deane, as a
ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got warmed with
talk and wine.

Already, in the second year, Tom's salary was raised; but all, except
the price of his dinner and clothes, went home into the tin box; and
he shunned comradeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite
of himself. Not that Tom was moulded on the spoony type of the
Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong appetite for
pleasure,--would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and to make a
distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing treats and
benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced
one of the finest young fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to
achieve these things sooner or later; but his practical shrewdness
told him that the means no such achievements could only lie for him in
present abstinence and self-denial; there were certain milestones to
be passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's debts.
Having made up his mind on that point, he strode along without
swerving, contracting some rather saturnine sternness, as a young man
is likely to do who has a premature call upon him for self-reliance.
Tom felt intensely that common cause with his father which springs
from family pride, and was bent on being irreproachable as a son; but
his growing experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the
rashness and imprudence of his father's past conduct; their
dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed little
radiance during his few home hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against
which she struggled as something unfair to her consciousness of wider
thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of no use to struggle. A
character at unity with itself--that performs what it intends, subdues
every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly
possible--is strong by its very negations.

You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlikeness to his
father was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and uncles;
and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and predictions to Mr. Glegg
concerning Tom's qualifications for business began to be discussed
amongst them with various acceptance. He was likely, it appeared, to
do the family credit without causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs.
Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's excellent complexion, so
entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a certainty that he would
turn out well; his juvenile errors of running down the peacock, and
general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a tinge of Tulliver
blood which he had doubtless outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a
cautious liking for Tom ever since his spirited and sensible behavior
when the execution was in the house, was now warming into a resolution
to further his prospects actively,--some time, when an opportunity
offered of doing so in a prudent manner, without ultimate loss; but
Mrs. Glegg observed that she was not given to speak without book, as
some people were; that those who said least were most likely to find
their words made good; and that when the right moment came, it would
be seen who could do something better than talk. Uncle Pullet, after
silent meditation for a period of several lozenges, came distinctly to
the conclusion, that when a young man was likely to do well, it was
better not to meddle with him.

Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but
himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all indications
of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his uncle Glegg look in on
him sometimes in a friendly way during business hours, and glad to be
invited to dine at his house, though he usually preferred declining on
the ground that he was not sure of being punctual. But about a year
ago, something had occurred which induced Tom to test his uncle
Glegg's friendly disposition.

Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds without seeing
Tom and Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as he was coming home from
St. Ogg's one evening, that they might have a little private talk. He
took the liberty of asking if Mr. Tom had ever thought of making money
by trading a bit on his own account. Trading, how? Tom wished to know.
Why, by sending out a bit of a cargo to foreign ports; because Bob had
a particular friend who had offered to do a little business for him in
that way in Laceham goods, and would be glad to serve Mr. Tom on the
same footing. Tom was interested at once, and begged for full
explanation, wondering he had not thought of this plan before.

He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might
change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at
once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get his
consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the
purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted his
father, but he had just paid his last quarter's money into the tin
box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were there; for
Mr. Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at interest lest
he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the purchase of some
corn, and had lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the
money under his eye.

Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the hearth
with his father that evening, and Mr. Tulliver listened, leaning
forward in his arm-chair and looking up in Tom's face with a sceptical
glance. His first impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was
in some awe of Tom's wishes, and since he had the sense of being an
"unlucky" father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and
determination to be master. He took the key of the bureau from his
pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and fetched down the tin
box,--slowly, as if he were trying to defer the moment of a painful
parting. Then he seated himself against the table, and opened the box
with that little padlock-key which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket
in all vacant moments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the
bright sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table--only a
hundred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching.

"How much do you want, then?" he said, speaking as if the words burnt
his lips.

"Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?" said Tom.

Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand
over it, said:

"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."

"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we
get. And in this way we might double our savings."

"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the money, "but you
might lose it,--you might lose a year o' my life,--and I haven't got
many."

Tom was silent.

"And you know I wouldn't pay a dividend with the first hundred,
because I wanted to see it all in a lump,--and when I see it, I'm sure
on't. If you trust to luck, it's sure to be against me. It's Old
Harry's got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, I shall
never pick it up again; death 'ull o'ertake me."

Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes
before he said:

"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly."

But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he determined to ask
his uncle Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on condition of receiving
five per cent. of the profits. That was really a very small thing to
ask. So when Bob called the next day at the wharf to know the
decision, Tom proposed that they should go together to his uncle
Glegg's to open the business; for his diffident pride clung to him,
and made him feel that Bobs' tongue would relieve him from some
embarrassment.

Mr. Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of a hot
August day, was naturally counting his wall-fruit to assure himself
that the sum total had not varied since yesterday. To him entered Tom,
in what appeared to Mr. Glegg very questionable companionship,--that
of a man with a pack on his back,--for Bob was equipped for a new
journey,--and of a huge brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow,
swaying movement from side to side, and glanced from under his
eye-lids with a surly indifference which might after all be a cover to
the most offensive designs.

Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting the
fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to him.

"Heigh! heigh! keep that dog back, will you?" he shouted, snatching up
a stake and holding it before him as a shield when the visitors were
within three yards of him.

"Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. "He's as quiet as a
lamb, sir,"--an observation which Mumps corroborated by a low growl as
he retreated behind his master's legs.

"Why, what ever does this mean, Tom?" said Mr. Glegg. "Have you
brought information about the scoundrels as cut my trees?" If Bob came
in the character of "information," Mr. Glegg saw reasons for
tolerating some irregularity.

"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a little matter of
business of my own."

"Ay--well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said the old
gentleman, getting mild again.

"It's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. "An' it's me as put Mr. Tom up
to the bit o' business; for Mr. Tom's been a friend o' mine iver since
I was a little chap; fust thing iver I did was frightenin' the birds
for th' old master. An' if a bit o' luck turns up, I'm allays thinkin'
if I can let Mr. Tom have a pull at it. An' it's a downright roarin'
shame, as when he's got the chance o' making a bit o' money wi'
sending goods out,--ten or twelve per zent clear, when freight an'
commission's paid,--as he shouldn't lay hold o' the chance for want o'
money. An' when there's the Laceham goods,--lors! they're made o'
purpose for folks as want to send out a little carguy; light, an' take
up no room,--you may pack twenty pound so as you can't see the
passill; an' they're manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they
aren't like to want a market. An' I'd go to Laceham an' buy in the
goods for Mr. Tom along wi' my own. An' there's the shupercargo o' the
bit of a vessel as is goin' to take 'em out. I know him partic'lar;
he's a solid man, an' got a family i' the town here. Salt, his name
is,--an' a briny chap he is too,--an' if you don't believe me, I can
take you to him."

Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this unembarrassed
loquacity, with which his understanding could hardly keep pace. He
looked at Bob, first over his spectacles, then through them, then over
them again; while Tom, doubtful of his uncle's impression, began to
wish he had not brought this singular Aaron, or mouthpiece. Bob's talk
appeared less seemly, now some one besides himself was listening to
it.

"You seem to be a knowing fellow," said Mr. Glegg, at last.

"Ay, sir, you say true," returned Bob, nodding his head aside; "I
think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full
o' plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I
should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I
niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I
says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says, 'an' then
I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an'
empty.' Lors, she's fine an' comfor'ble now, my old mother is; she
ates her baked meat an' taters as often as she likes. For I'm gettin'
so full o' money, I must hev a wife to spend it for me. But it's
botherin,' a wife is,--and Mumps mightn't like her."

Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since he had retired
from business, was beginning to find Bob amusing, but he had still a
disapproving observation to make, which kept his face serious.

"Ah," he said, "I should think you're at a loss for ways o' spending
your money, else you wouldn't keep that big dog, to eat as much as two
Christians. It's shameful--shameful!" But he spoke more in sorrow than
in anger, and quickly added:

"But, come now, let's hear more about this business, Tom. I suppose
you want a little sum to make a venture with. But where's all your own
money? You don't spend it all--eh?"

"No, sir," said Tom, coloring; "but my father is unwilling to risk it,
and I don't like to press him. If I could get twenty or thirty pounds
to begin with, I could pay five per cent for it, and then I could
gradually make a little capital of my own, and do without a loan."

"Ay--ay," said Mr. Glegg, in an approving tone; "that's not a bad
notion, and I won't say as I wouldn't be your man. But it 'ull be as
well for me to see this Salt, as you talk on. And then--here's this
friend o' yours offers to buy the goods for you. Perhaps you've got
somebody to stand surety for you if the money's put into your hands?"
added the cautious old gentleman, looking over his spectacles at Bob.

"I don't think that's necessary, uncle," said Tom. "At least, I mean
it would not be necessary for me, because I know Bob well; but perhaps
it would be right for you to have some security."

"You get your percentage out o' the purchase, I suppose?" said Mr.
Glegg, looking at Bob.

"No, sir," said Bob, rather indignantly; "I didn't offer to get a
apple for Mr. Tom, o' purpose to hev a bite out of it myself. When I
play folks tricks, there'll be more fun in 'em nor that."

"Well, but it's nothing but right you should have a small percentage,"
said Mr. Glegg. "I've no opinion o' transactions where folks do things
for nothing. It allays looks bad."

"Well, then," said Bob, whose keenness saw at once what was implied,
"I'll tell you what I get by't, an' it's money in my pocket in the
end,--I make myself look big, wi' makin' a bigger purchase. That's
what I'm thinking on. Lors! I'm a 'cute chap,--I am."

"Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg!" said a severe voice from the open parlor
window, "pray are you coming in to tea, or are you going to stand
talking with packmen till you get murdered in the open daylight?"

"Murdered?" said Mr. Glegg; "what's the woman talking of? Here's your
nephey Tom come about a bit o' business."

"Murdered,--yes,--it isn't many 'sizes ago since a packman murdered a
young woman in a lone place, and stole her thimble, and threw her body
into a ditch."

"Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, "you're thinking o' the man
wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart."

"Well, it's the same thing, Mr. Glegg, only you're fond o'
contradicting what I say; and if my nephey's come about business, it
'ud be more fitting if you'd bring him into the house, and let his
aunt know about it, instead o' whispering in corners, in that
plotting, underminding way."

"Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, "we'll come in now."

"You needn't stay here," said the lady to Bob, in a loud voice,
adapted to the moral, not the physical, distance between them. "We
don't want anything. I don't deal wi' packmen. Mind you shut the gate
after you."

"Stop a bit; not so fast," said Mr. Glegg; "I haven't done with this
young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in," he added, stepping in at the
French window.

"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a fatal tone, "if you're going to let
that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very face, be so good
as to let me know. A wife's got a right to ask that, I hope."

"Don't you be uneasy, mum," said Bob, touching his cap. He saw at once
that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to be
at the sport; "we'll stay out upo' the gravel here,--Mumps and me
will. Mumps knows his company,--he does. I might hish at him by th'
hour together, before he'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It's
wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies; and's
partic'lar fond of 'em when they've good shapes. Lors!" added Bob,
laying down his pack on the gravel, "it's a thousand pities such a
lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i' stead o' goin' into
these newfangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi'
their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi'
ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o'
calico; it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay
a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods,--an' pays no rent,
an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on
him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better
nor I do,--_you_ can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound."

"Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too," observed Mrs.
Glegg, intending to imply that Bob's flattery had produced no effect
on _her;_ while her husband, standing behind her with his hands in his
pockets and legs apart, winked and smiled with conjugal delight at the
probability of his wife's being circumvented.

"Ay, to be sure, mum," said Bob. "Why, you must ha' dealt wi' no end
o' packmen when you war a young lass--before the master here had the
luck to set eyes on you. I know where you lived, I do,--seen th' house
many a time,--close upon Squire Darleigh's,--a stone house wi'
steps----"

"Ah, that it had," said Mrs. Glegg, pouring out the tea. "You know
something o' my family, then? Are you akin to that packman with a
squint in his eye, as used to bring th' Irish linen?"

"Look you there now!" said Bob, evasively. "Didn't I know as you'd
remember the best bargains you've made in your life was made wi'
packmen? Why, you see even a squintin' packman's better nor a shopman
as can see straight. Lors! if I'd had the luck to call at the stone
house wi' my pack, as lies here,"--stooping and thumping the bundle
emphatically with his fist,--"an' th' handsome young lasses all
stannin' out on the stone steps, it ud' ha' been summat like openin' a
pack, that would. It's on'y the poor houses now as a packman calls on,
if it isn't for the sake o' the sarvant-maids. They're paltry times,
these are. Why, mum, look at the printed cottons now, an' what they
was when you wore 'em,--why, you wouldn't put such a thing on now, I
can see. It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as you'd
buy,--summat as 'ud wear as well as your own faitures."

"Yes, better quality nor any you're like to carry; you've got nothing
first-rate but brazenness, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Glegg, with a
triumphant sense of her insurmountable sagacity. "Mr. Glegg, are you
going ever to sit down to your tea? Tom, there's a cup for you."

"You speak true there, mum," said Bob. "My pack isn't for ladies like
you. The time's gone by for that. Bargains picked up dirt cheap! A bit
o' damage here an' there, as can be cut out, or else niver seen i' the
wearin', but not fit to offer to rich folks as can pay for the look o'
things as nobody sees. I'm not the man as 'ud offer t' open my pack to
_you_, mum; no, no; I'm a imperent chap, as you say,--these times
makes folks imperent,--but I'm not up to the mark o' that."

"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said Mrs. Glegg.
"Fine-colored things, I suppose,--shawls an' that?"

"All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob,--thumping his bundle; "but let
us say no more about that, if _you_ please. I'm here upo' Mr. Tom's
business, an' I'm not the man to take up the time wi' my own."

"And pray, what _is_ this business as is to be kept from me?" said
Mrs. Glegg, who, solicited by a double curiosity, was obliged to let
the one-half wait.

"A little plan o' nephey Tom's here," said good-natured Mr. Glegg;
"and not altogether a bad 'un, I think. A little plan for making
money; that's the right sort o' plan for young folks as have got their
fortin to make, eh, Jane?"

"But I hope it isn't a plan where he expects iverything to be done for
him by his friends; that's what the young folks think of mostly
nowadays. And pray, what has this packman got to do wi' what goes on
in our family? Can't you speak for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt
know things, as a nephey should?"

"This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation that aunt
Glegg's voice always produced. "I've known him ever since we were
little boys. He's a very good fellow, and always ready to do me a
kindness. And he has had some experience in sending goods out,--a
small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I
could begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A
large interest is got in that way."

"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and what do you
call large int'rest?"

"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid."

"Then why wasn't I let to know o' such things before, Mr. Glegg?" said
Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone of
reproach. "Haven't you allays told me as there was no getting more nor
five per cent?"

"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg. "You couldn't
go into trade, could you? You can't get more than five per cent with
security."

"But I can turn a bit o' money for you, an' welcome, mum," said Bob,
"if you'd like to risk it,--not as there's any risk to speak on. But
if you'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to Mr. Tom, he'd pay you six or
seven per zent, an' get a trifle for himself as well; an' a
good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like the feel o' the money better if
your nephey took part on it."

"What do you say, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg. "I've a notion, when I've
made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom here with a bit
of a nest-egg,--he'll pay me int'rest, you know,--an' if you've got
some little sums lyin' idle twisted up in a stockin' toe, or that----"

"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give information to
the tramps next, as they may come and rob me."

"Well, well, as I was sayin', if you like to join me wi' twenty
pounds, you can--I'll make it fifty. That'll be a pretty good
nest-egg, eh, Tom?"

"You're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his wife. "You
could do fine things wi' my money, I don't doubt."

"Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, "then we'll do without
you. I shall go with you to see this Salt," he added, turning to Bob.

"And now, I suppose, you'll go all the other way, Mr. Glegg," said
Mrs. G., "and want to shut me out o' my own nephey's business. I never
said I wouldn't put money into it,--I don't say as it shall be twenty
pounds, though you're so ready to say it for me,--but he'll see some
day as his aunt's in the right not to risk the money she's saved for
him till it's proved as it won't be lost."

"Ay, that's a pleasant sort o'risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,
indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling. But Bob
stemmed the injured lady's outburst.

"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what--you do. An' it's
nothing but fair. _You_ see how the first bit of a job answers, an'
then you'll come down handsome. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev good
kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own
sharpness,--ten suvreigns it was,--wi' dousing the fire at Torry's
mill, an' it's growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I'n got a
matter o' thirty pound to lay out, besides makin' my mother
comfor'ble. I should get more, on'y I'm such a soft wi' the women,--I
can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There's this bundle,
now," thumping it lustily, "any other chap 'ud make a pretty penny out
on it. But me!--lors, I shall sell 'em for pretty near what I paid for
'em."

"Have you got a bit of good net, now?" said Mrs. Glegg, in a
patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.

"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to look at. I'd
scorn to show it you. It 'ud be an insult to you."

"But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. "If they're
damaged goods, they're like enough to be a bit the better quality."

"No, mum, I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his pack and
shouldering it. "I'm not going t' expose the lowness o' my trade to a
lady like you. Packs is come down i' the world; it 'ud cut you to th'
heart to see the difference. I'm at your sarvice, sir, when you've a
mind to go and see Salt."

"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the
dialogue. "Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?"

"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place."

"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a
chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity.

"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.

"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do as I tell
you."

"Eh mum, I'm loth, that I am," said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on
the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. "But what
you order shall be done" (much fumbling in pauses between the
sentences). "It's not as you'll buy a single thing on me,--I'd be
sorry for you to do it,--for think o' them poor women up i' the
villages there, as niver stir a hundred yards from home,--it 'ud be a
pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it's as good as a
junketing to 'em when they see me wi' my pack, an' I shall niver pick
up such bargains for 'em again. Least ways, I've no time now, for I'm
off to Laceham. See here now," Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and
holding up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in
the corner; "here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two
shillin'--an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole 'i this
plain end. Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was sent by
Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin'
women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now,
every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich, handsome ladies, like
you, mum, at five shillin' apiece,--not a farthin' less; but what does
the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no
time; an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as
live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors,
it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher!"

Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said sharply:

"Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these colored
things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em."

"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging aside the
colored things with an air of desperation. "I knowed it ud' turn
again' you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here's a piece
o' figured muslin now, what's the use o' you lookin' at it? You might
as well look at poor folks's victual, mum; it 'ud on'y take away your
appetite. There's a yard i' the middle on't as the pattern's all
missed,--lors, why, it's a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha'
wore; but," added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to
save Mrs. Glegg's eyes, "it'll be bought up by the huckster's wife at
Fibb's End,--that's where _it'll_ go--ten shillin' for the whole
lot--ten yards, countin' the damaged un--five-an'-twenty shillin' 'ud
ha' been the price, not a penny less. But I'll say no more, mum; it's
nothing to you, a piece o' muslin like that; you can afford to pay
three times the money for a thing as isn't half so good. It's nets
_you_ talked on; well, I've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun
on----"

"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's a buff; I'm partial to
buff."

"Eh, but a _damaged_ thing," said Bob, in a tone of deprecating
disgust. "You'd do nothing with it, mum, you'd give it to the cook, I
know you would, an' it 'ud be a pity,--she'd look too much like a lady
in it; it's unbecoming for servants."

"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg,
authoritatively.

Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.

"See what there is over measure!" he said, holding forth the extra
half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and
throwing her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a
distant view.

"I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down with
the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.

"Didn't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings to look at
my pack? That damaged bit's turned your stomach now; I see it has,"
said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and
apparently about to fasten up his pack. "You're used to seein' a
different sort o' article carried by packmen, when you lived at the
stone house. Packs is come down i' the world; I told you that; _my_
goods are for common folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' for
that muslin, an' be sorry as I didn't ask her more. Such articles
answer i' the wearin',--they keep their color till the threads melt
away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while _I'm_ a young un."

"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg.

"Put it out o' your mind, mum, now do," said Bob. "Here's a bit o'
net, then, for you to look at before I tie up my pack, just for you to
see what my trade's come to,--spotted and sprigged, you see, beautiful
but yallow,--'s been lyin' by an' got the wrong color. I could niver
ha' bought such net, if it hadn't been yallow. Lors, it's took me a
deal o' study to know the vally o' such articles; when I begun to
carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the
same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest.
I was took in dreadful, for I'm a straightforrard chap,--up to no
tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I
should lose myself pretty quick. An' I gev five-an'-eightpence for
that piece o' net,--if I was to tell y' anything else I should be
tellin' you fibs,--an' five-an'-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a
penny more, for it's a woman's article, an' I like to 'commodate the
women. Five-an'-eightpence for six yards,--as cheap as if it was only
the dirt on it as was paid for.'"

"I don't mind having three yards of it,'" said Mrs. Glegg.

"Why, there's but six altogether," said Bob. "No, mum, it isn't worth
your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an' get the same pattern
ready whitened. It's on'y three times the money; what's that to a lady
like you?" He gave an emphatic tie to his bundle.

"Come, lay me out that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "Here's eight
shilling for it."

"You _will_ be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; "I
see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder."

"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.

"But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you'll be so good as
not tell nobody. I should be a laughin'-stock; the trade 'ud hoot me,
if they knowed it. I'm obliged to make believe as I ask more nor I do
for my goods, else they'd find out I was a flat. I'm glad you don't
insist upo' buyin' the net, for then I should ha' lost my two best
bargains for Mrs. Pepper o' Fibb's End, an' she's a rare customer."

"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning after the
cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.

"Well, I can't deny _you_, mum," said Bob handing it out.

"Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the
sort o' article I'm recommendin' Mr. Tom to send out. Lors, it's a
fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o' money; these Laceham goods
'ud make it breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi' a bit o'
money!--why, I know one as put thirty pounds into them goods,--a lady
wi' a cork leg, but as sharp,--you wouldn't catch _her_ runnin' her
head into a sack; _she'd_ see her way clear out o' anything afore
she'd be in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a
young man in the drapering line, and he laid it out i' Laceham goods,
an' a shupercargo o' my acquinetance (not Salt) took 'em out, an' she
got her eight per zent fust go off; an' now you can't hold her but she
must be sendin' out carguies wi' every ship, till she's gettin' as
rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she doesn't live i' this town. Now
then, mum, if you'll please to give me the net----"

"Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg. "But
it's a shameful price."

"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your knees i' church
i' five years' time. I'm makin' you a present o' th' articles; I am,
indeed. That eightpence shaves off my profits as clean as a razor. Now
then, sir," continued Bob, shouldering his pack, "if you please, I'll
be glad to go and see about makin' Mr. Tom's fortin. Eh, I wish I'd
got another twenty pound to lay out _my_sen; I shouldn't stay to say
my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."

"Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took his hat,
"you never _will_ give me the chance o' speaking. You'll go away now,
and finish everything about this business, and come back and tell me
it's too late for me to speak. As if I wasn't my nephey's own aunt,
and the head o' the family on his mother's side! and laid by guineas,
all full weight, for him, as he'll know who to respect when I'm laid
in my coffin."

"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily.

"Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my knowing. I
don't say as I sha'n't venture twenty pounds, if you make out as
everything's right and safe. And if I do, Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg,
turning impressively to her nephew, "I hope you'll allays bear it in
mind and be grateful for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me interest,
you know; I don't approve o' giving; we niver looked for that in _my_
family."

"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer having the
money only lent to me."

"Very well; that's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg, rising to get
her knitting with the sense that any further remark after this would
be bathos.

Salt--that eminently "briny chap"--having been discovered in a cloud
of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr. Glegg commenced inquiries
which turned out satisfactorily enough to warrant the advance of the
"nest-egg," to which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in this
modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise
surprise you; namely, Tom's accumulation of a fund, unknown to his
father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy
process of saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his
attention had been turned to this source of gain, Tom determined to
make the most of it, and lost no opportunity of obtaining information
and extending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he was
influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often
gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire
it,--partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen
between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most
sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise
his father with a great joy. He did not see that it would have been
better to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the
delirium of a too sudden elation.

At the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, Tom had already
nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they
were walking by the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same
evening light, was riding into Laceham, proud of being on his first
journey on behalf of Guest & Co., and revolving in his mind all the
chances that by the end of another year he should have doubled his
gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his father's name, and
perhaps--for he should be twenty-one--have got a new start for
himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not desire it? He
was quite sure that he did.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Tom has been working his way up in the world of business and is doing pretty well for himself. Mr. Deane thinks that Tom has potential and has been giving him more responsibilities. Like Maggie, Tom is on a path of self-denial. Tom, however, is now a total workaholic and he's obsessed with paying off his father's debts. Tom is becoming much more severe and his aunts and uncles are liking him better, since he doesn't resemble his father. We flashback a year to an incident between Bob and Tom. Bob approached Tom with an investment scheme to make some extra cash. Tom is all about making money, so he's down with this plan. But he needs some money to get things started. He asks his dad for some money, but Mr. Tulliver doesn't want to part with his precious money since he enjoys counting it every night. Having stuck out there, Tom decides to ask his Uncle Glegg for help since Uncle Glegg is generally a cool guy. So Bob and Tom go to visit the Gleggs. Bob rambles on and on and amazes Mr. Glegg with his ability to never stop talking. Mrs. Glegg then comes out to see what's going on and she thinks Bob is a murderer or a thief or something bad. Bob proceeds to charm the socks off of Mrs. Glegg. Mastermind that he is, Bob sells both of the Gleggs on his and Tom's business venture and he also manages to get Mrs. Glegg to buy some stuff from his pack by using the powers of reverse psychology. Basically, he tells Mrs. Glegg that she is too nice of a lady to want to buy any of his merchandise and, since Mrs. Glegg doesn't like to be told she can't do something, she buys some fabric from Bob and invests in Tom's business venture. Uncle Glegg finds the whole thing hilarious and he agrees to give Tom some money, too. We jump forward in time again and learn that, by the time Maggie and Philip met in the Red Deeps, Tom has 150 pounds of his own money and has been promoted once again at Guest and Co. Well done, Tom.


prompt:
Chapter: The Wavering Balance

I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a
mental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her
interview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an
opening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley of
humiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky;
and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out of
her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she might hear
tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense of
exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was
pitiable,--clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity
indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service;
perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without
some width of knowledge; _must_ she always live in this resigned
imprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should
be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were
so unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warning
came again and again,--that she was losing the simplicity and
clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that,
by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herself
under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had
won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next
week to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she
was resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked
forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the
hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to the
affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense of
comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to
the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said,
which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very
hard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be no
other like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm as
well as sad.

"Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each
other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without
concealment--stay, I know what you are going to say,--it is other
people's wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but
concealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be
bad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered,
there would be nothing but misery,--dreadful anger; and then we must
part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing
each other."

Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of
expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all
his might.

But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: "Well,
Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour;
let us talk together a little while, for the last time."

He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his
quietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and
she wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walked
together hand in hand in silence.

"Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we stood the last
time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their
opal petals over it."

They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.

"I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie," said
Philip, "so you must let me study your face a little, while you
stay,--since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this
way."

This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard
of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black
coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be
worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up
to it.

"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling.
"Will it be larger than the other?"

"Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tall
Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of the
fir-trees, when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on the
grass."

"You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?"

"Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly; "but I think of too many
things,--sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one
of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and
effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for
classic literature, and mediaeval literature, and modern literature; I
flutter all ways, and fly in none."

"But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy so
many beautiful things, when they are within your reach," said Maggie,
musingly. "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to
have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon."

"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other
men," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinction
by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling
satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I
might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could
make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty
that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,
there is one thing,--a passion answers as well as a faculty."

Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the
consciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibrating
again as it used to do.

"I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know so much less
than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on
being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no
consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I
think we are only like children that some one who is wiser is taking
care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be
denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three
years, even joy in subduing my own will."

"Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourself
up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of
escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your
nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing
endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be
allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to
remain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life of
your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not
sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are not
resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."

Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip
said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate
application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her
double impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.
Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence
because it made an argument against the resolution that opposed his
wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears,
touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her hand
and said gently:

"Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Let
us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of
separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to
live as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always
come a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way."

"What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip," said Maggie,
smiling through the haze of tears. "I think you would have made as
much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would
have satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear
with me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that
Tom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. That
is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.
I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instruments
playing together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever
sing now, Philip?" she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what
went before.

"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling,
like everything else in me."

"Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ listen to that before
I go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday afternoon,
when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron over
my head to listen."

"_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while
he sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said,
"That's it, isn't it?"

"Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. "It will only haunt
me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home."

She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her.

"Maggie," he said, in a tone of remonstrance, "don't persist in this
wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbing
and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when
you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,--all wit
and bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, until
you draw that veil of dull quiescence over it."

"Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?" said Maggie.

"Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this
self-torture."

"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously.

"No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what is
unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No
character becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the
world some day, and then every rational satisfaction of your nature
that you deny now will assault you like a savage appetite."

Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face.

"Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter."

"No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives
foreboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ supply you with books; do let me
see you sometimes,--be your brother and teacher, as you said at
Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should
be committing this long suicide."

Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on in
silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put out
her hand in sign of parting.

"Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I may
come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is no
concealment in that?"

It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become
irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon
us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and
firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long
struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.

Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip's, and there
passed over her face that almost imperceptible shock which accompanies
any relief. He saw it, and they parted in silence.

Philip's sense of the situation was too complete for him not to be
visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening too
presumptuously in the action of Maggie's conscience, perhaps for a
selfish end. But no!--he persuaded himself his end was not selfish. He
had little hope that Maggie would ever return the strong feeling he
had for her; and it must be better for Maggie's future life, when
these petty family obstacles to her freedom had disappeared, that the
present should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should have
some opportunity of culture,--some interchange with a mind above the
vulgar level of those she was now condemned to live with. If we only
look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always
find some point in the combination of results by which those actions
can be justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence who
arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find
it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is
most agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this way
that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Maggie's true
prompting against a concealment that would introduce doubleness into
her own mind, and might cause new misery to those who had the primary
natural claim on her. But there was a surplus of passion in him that
made him half independent of justifying motives. His longing to see
Maggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that savage
impulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a life in which
the mental and bodily constitution have made pain predominate. He had
not his full share in the common good of men; he could not even pass
muster with the insignificant, but must be singled out for pity, and
excepted from what was a matter of course with others. Even to Maggie
he was an exception; it was clear that the thought of his being her
lover had never entered her mind.

Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed people have great
need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely
uncomfortable without them; but the theory that unusual virtues spring
by a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals get
thicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The
temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear
the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess at
a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well as
palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of
hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost
trial to what is human in us?

Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which flows out to
us in the greater abundance because our need is greater, which clings
to us the more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winners
in the game of life; and the sense of his father's affection and
indulgence toward him was marred by the keener perception of his
father's faults. Kept aloof from all practical life as Philip had
been, and by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the
woman's intolerant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberate
pursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one strong natural tie in his
life,--his relation as a son,--was like an aching limb to him. Perhaps
there is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in any
way unfavorably excepted from ordinary conditions, until the good
force has had time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that at
two-and-twenty. That force was present in Philip in much strength, but
the sun himself looks feeble through the morning mists.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Maggie's internal conflict continues: she doesn't know if she should keep seeing Philip in secret or not. Though she really wants to see him, she decides that she has to break off contact with him. Maggie goes back to the Red Deeps to find Philip and she tells him that they can't see each other ever again. Philip is seriously bummed out but stalls Maggie by saying they should have one last visit together. Philip asks Maggie if he can sketch her and she says OK. Philip comments on how he enjoys painting and music and literature but that he flutters about and doesn't have a serious occupation. Maggie thinks having multiple talents is a great but Philip wants a single overriding passion in his life. Maggie blows past this reference to herself and talks about her religious views some more. Philip starts up their debate once again and tells Maggie that denying herself is very bad. He tells her that she's deliberately stupefying herself. Maggie is very upset and tells Philip that he would have been an excellent brother. She explains that she always wanted too much of everything, which is why she's cutting herself off from life now. Maggie asks Philip to sing her a song, since she misses music most of all. Philip sings a bit and Maggie is overcome and takes off for home. Philip once again begs Maggie to stop torturing herself since it's unnatural. He asks to be her friend and book/culture provider. Maggie is conflicted. Again. The narrator butts in to give us some background on Philip. She says that he never got enough love in his childhood. Philip has had a very isolated life which is why he is so desperate to remain friends with Maggie.