prompt:
Chapter: What Had Happened at Home

When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was decided
against him, and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant, every one who
happened to observe him at the time thought that, for so confident and
hot-tempered a man, he bore the blow remarkably well. He thought so
himself; he thought he was going to show that if Wakem or anybody else
considered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He could
not refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit would take
more than he possessed to pay them; but he appeared to himself to be
full of expedients by which he could ward off any results but such as
were tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in the
world. All the obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of
their old channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate
formation of plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remain
Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There was such a rush
of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face was flushed
when he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr. Gore, and
mounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was Furley, who held
the mortgage on the land,--a reasonable fellow, who would see his own
interest, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not only
to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and homestead, but
would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance money
to be repaid with high interest out of the profits of the business,
which would be made over to him, Mr. Tulliver only taking enough
barely to maintain himself and his family. Who would neglect such a
profitable investment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had
determined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity;
and there are men whoses brains have not yet been dangerously heated
by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own interest or
desires a motive for other men's actions. There was no doubt (in the
miller's mind) that Furley would do just what was desirable; and if he
did--why, things would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his
family must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till
the profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and that
might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of life before
him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid without his
being obliged to turn out of his old place, and look like a ruined
man. It was certainly an awkward moment in his affairs. There was that
suretyship for poor Riley, who had died suddenly last April, and left
his friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds,--a
fact which had helped to make Mr. Tulliver's banking book less
pleasant reading than a man might desire toward Christmas. Well! he
had never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse to
give a helping hand to a fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. The
really vexatious business was the fact that some months ago the
creditor who had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegg
had become uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), and
Mr. Tulliver, still confident that he should gain his suit, and
finding it eminently inconvenient to raise the said sum until that
desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand that
he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and some
other effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he had
said to himself; he should soon pay off the money, and there was no
harm in giving that security any more than another. But now the
consequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, and
he remembered that the time was close at hand when it would be
enforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he would have
declared stoutly that he would never be beholden to his wife's
friends; but now he told himself as stoutly that it was nothing but
right and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explain the
thing to them; they would hardly let Bessy's furniture be sold, and it
might be security to Pullet if he advanced the money,--there would,
after all, be no gift or favor in the matter. Mr. Tulliver would never
have asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself,
but Bessy might do so if she liked.

It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most
liable to shift their position and contradict themselves in this
sudden manner; everything is easier to them than to face the simple
fact that they have been thoroughly defeated, and must begin life
anew. And Mr. Tulliver, you perceive, though nothing more than a
superior miller and maltster, was as proud and obstinate as if he had
been a very lofty personage, in whom such dispositions might be a
source of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps the
stage in regal robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. The
pride and obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people, whom
you pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy too;
but it is of that unwept, hidden sort that goes on from generation to
generation, and leaves no record,--such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in
the conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made
suddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of a home where the
morning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpectant
discontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children
like a damp, thick air, in which all the functions of life are
depressed; or such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death that
follows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only
a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of
position is a law of life,--they can never flourish again, after a
single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominance
is a law of life,--they can only sustain humiliation so long as they
can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate
still.

Mr. Tulliver was still predominating, in his own imagination, as he
approached St. Ogg's, through which he had to pass on his way
homeward. But what was it that suggested to him, as he saw the Laceham
coach entering the town, to follow it to the coach-office, and get the
clerk there to write a letter, requiring Maggie to come home the very
next day? Mr. Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitement
for him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given to the
coachman to deliver at Miss Firniss's school in the morning. There was
a craving which he would not account for to himself, to have Maggie
near him, without delay,--she must come back by the coach to-morrow.

To Mrs. Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no difficulties,
and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was
lost, by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. He
said nothing to her that night about the bill of sale and the
application to Mrs. Pullet, for he had kept her in ignorance of the
nature of that transaction, and had explained the necessity for taking
an inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his will. The
possession of a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect is,
like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and,
among the rest, with the occasional necessity for using a little
deception.

The next day Mr. Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon, on
his way to Mr. Gore's office at St. Ogg's. Gore was to have seen
Furley in the morning, and to have sounded him in relation to Mr.
Tulliver's affairs. But he had not gone half-way when he met a clerk
from Mr. Gore's office, who was bringing a letter to Mr. Tulliver. Mr.
Gore had been prevented by a sudden call of business from waiting at
his office to see Mr. Tulliver, according to appointment, but would be
at his office at eleven to-morrow morning, and meanwhile had sent some
important information by letter.

"Oh!" said Mr. Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it. "Then
tell Gore I'll see him to-morrow at eleven"; and he turned his horse.

The clerk, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening, excited glance,
looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading of
a letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr. Tulliver; he took in
the sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written or
even printed characters; so he had put the letter in his pocket,
thinking he would open it in his armchair at home. But by-and-by it
occurred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs.
Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep it
out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took out the
letter, and read it. It was only a short letter; the substance was,
that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret, but sure authority, that
Furley had been lately much straitened for money, and had parted with
his securities,--among the rest, the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver's
property, which he had transferred to----Wakem.

In half an hour after this Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner found him lying
by the roadside insensible, with an open letter near him, and his gray
horse snuffing uneasily about him.

When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to her father's
call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before he had become
conscious, and after vague, vacant looks around him, had muttered
something about "a letter," which he presently repeated impatiently.
At the instance of Mr. Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter was
brought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to be
allayed. The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on the
letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help. But
presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come and swept the other
away; he turned his eyes from the letter to the door, and after
looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too
dim for, he said, "The little wench."

He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appearing
entirely unconscious of everything except this one importunate want,
and giving no sign of knowing his wife or any one else; and poor Mrs.
Tulliver, her feeble faculties almost paralyzed by this sudden
accumulation of troubles, went backward and forward to the gate to see
if the Laceham coach were coming, though it was not yet time.

But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no longer the
"little wench," except to her father's fond memory.

"Oh, mother, what is the matter?" Maggie said, with pale lips, as her
mother came toward her crying. She didn't think her father was ill,
because the letter had come at his dictation from the office at St.
Ogg's.

But Mr. Turnbull came now to meet her; a medical man is the good angel
of the troubled house, and Maggie ran toward the kind old friend, whom
she remembered as long as she could remember anything, with a
trembling, questioning look.

"Don't alarm yourself too much, my dear," he said, taking her hand.
"Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered his
memory. But he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to see
you. Keep as quiet as you can; take off your things, and come upstairs
with me."

Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makes
existence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness with
which Mr. Turnbull spoke had frightened her susceptible imagination.
Her father's eyes were still turned uneasily toward the door when she
entered and met the strange, yearning, helpless look that had been
seeking her in vain. With a sudden flash and movement, he raised
himself in the bed; she rushed toward him, and clasped him with
agonized kisses.

Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those supreme
moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can
dread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant; is lost,
like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love which knits us
to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of
helplessness or of anguish.

But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on the
father's bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again in renewed
insensibility and rigidity, which lasted for many hours, and was only
broken by a flickering return of consciousness, in which he took
passively everything that was given to him, and seemed to have a sort
of infantine satisfaction in Maggie's near presence,--such
satisfaction as a baby has when it is returned to the nurse's lap.

Mrs. Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing and
lifting up of hands below stairs. Both uncles and aunts saw that the
ruin of Bessy and her family was as complete as they had ever
foreboded it, and there was a general family sense that a judgment had
fallen on Mr. Tulliver, which it would be an impiety to counteract by
too much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever
leaving her father's bedside, where she sat opposite him with her hand
on his. Mrs. Tulliver wanted to have Tom fetched home, and seemed to
be thinking more of her boy even than of her husband; but the aunts
and uncles opposed this. Tom was better at school, since Mr. Turnbull
said there was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the
second day, when Maggie had become more accustomed to her father's
fits of insensibility, and to the expectation that he would revive
from them, the thought of Tom had become urgent with _her_ too; and
when her mother sate crying at night and saying, "My poor lad--it's
nothing but right he should come home," Maggie said, "Let me go for
him, and tell him, mother; I'll go to-morrow morning if father doesn't
know me and want me. It would be so hard for Tom to come home and not
know anything about it beforehand."

And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen. Sitting on the
coach on their way home, the brother and sister talked to each other
in sad, interrupted whispers.

"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"
said Maggie. "It was the letter with that news in it that made father
ill, they think."

"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my
father," said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite
conclusion. "I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never
speak to Philip again."

"Oh, Tom!" said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance; but she had no
spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposing
him.

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

completion: We flashback to learn how Mr. Tulliver lost the lawsuit and became ill. Mr. Tulliver was confident that he would win the lawsuit. When he lost, Mr. Tulliver went into crisis mode, assessing his financial state, which was not good at all. Mr. Tulliver owed a lot of people money and was going to have to borrow even more to pay the legal expenses and to somehow keep his mill. We learn that Mr. Riley died and saddled his friend with a large debt due to a suretyship. A suretyship is basically a note saying that Mr. Riley is good for the money he borrowed and if, for some reason he can't pay it, Mr. Tulliver will take care of it. Despite his really awful financial situation, Mr. Tulliver won't admit that anything is wrong to his wife. He tells her to send for Maggie. Mr. Tulliver plans to see Mr. Furley, who owns the mortgage on the mill. He hopes Mr. Furley will buy the mill outright and keep Mr. Tulliver on as a tenant. But then Mr. Tulliver gets a letter from his lawyer, telling him that Mr. Furley is having money problems, too, and turned over all his mortgages to Mr. Wakem. Mr. Tulliver reads this letter while on his horse and promptly falls off in shock, badly injuring himself. The doctor comes and says that Mr. Tulliver has had some sort of stroke. Mr. Tulliver has no idea what is going on and doesn't remember the letter, which his family finds on him. Maggie arrives home devastated and sits with her father all the time in his room. She decides that she needs to go fetch Tom. We're caught up to the present now. Tom swears that he will get revenge against Wakem one day and tells Maggie that she can no longer associate with Philip.


prompt:
Chapter: Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods

When the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since she
had started from home, and she was thinking with some trembling that
her father had perhaps missed her, and asked for "the little wench" in
vain. She thought of no other change that might have happened.

She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house before Tom;
but in the entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The
parlor door was ajar; 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 that Tom was come. Maggie, after
this pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door when
Tom came up, and they both looked into the parlor together.

There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom had some vague
recollection, sitting in his father's chair, smoking, with a jug and
glass beside him.

The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To "have the bailiff in
the house," and "to be sold up," were phrases which he had been used
to, even as a little boy; they were part of the disgrace and misery of
"failing," of losing all one's money, and being ruined,--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 immediate presence of
this disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than the worst
form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment as if his real
trouble had only just begin; it was a touch on the irritated nerve
compared with its spontaneous dull aching.

"How do you do, sir?" said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth,
with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made
him a little uncomfortable.

But Tom turned away hastily without speaking; the sight was too
hateful. Maggie had not understood the appearance of this stranger, as
Tom had. She followed him, whispering: "Who can it be, Tom? What 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 her
bonnet, and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there; her father was
lying, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes closed as when
she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother.

"Where's my mother?" she whispered. The servant did not know.

Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom; "Father is lying quiet; let us
go and look for my mother. I wonder where she is."

Mrs. Tulliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. There
was but one room below the attic which Maggie had left unsearched; it
was the storeroom, where her mother kept all her linen and all the
precious "best things" that were only unwrapped and brought out on
special occasions.

Tom, preceding Maggie, as they returned along the passage, opened the
door of this room, and immediately said, "Mother!"

Mrs. Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of
the linen chests was open; the silver teapot was unwrapped from its
many folds of paper, 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 was shaking her head and weeping,
with a bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark, "Elizabeth Dodson,"
on the corner of some tablecloths she held in her lap.

She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke.

"Oh, my boy, my boy!" she said, clasping him round the neck. "To think
as I should live to see this day! We're ruined--everything's going to
be sold up--to think as your father should ha' married me to bring me
to this! We've got nothing--we shall be beggars--we must go to the
workhouse----"

She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another tablecloth
on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, while
the children stood by in mute wretchedness, their minds quite filled
for the moment with the words "beggars" and "workhouse."

"To think o' these cloths as I spun myself," she went on, lifting
things out and turning them over with an excitement all the more
strange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually so
passive,--if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface
merely,--"and Job Haxey wove 'em, and brought the piece home on his
back, as 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
people's houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives, and wore out
before I'm dead. You'll never have one of 'em, my boy," she said,
looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears, "and I meant 'em for
you. I wanted you to have all o' this pattern. Maggie could have had
the large check--it never shows so well when the dishes are on it."

Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction
immediately. His face flushed as he said:

"But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it?
They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to them?"

"Yes, I sent Luke directly they'd put the bailies in, and your aunt
Pullet's been--and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says your
father's disgraced my family and made it the talk o' the country; and
she'll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because she's never had so
many as she wanted o' that pattern, and they sha'n't go to strangers,
but she's got more checks a'ready nor she can 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 found fault with 'em when I bought 'em, 'cause
o' the small gold sprig all over 'em, between the flowers. But there's
none of 'em got better chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself; and I
bought it wi' my own money as I'd saved ever since I was turned
fifteen; and the silver teapot, too,--your father never paid for 'em.
And to think as he should ha' married me, and brought me to this."

Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with her
handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said
in a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if she were called upon
to speak before she could command her voice,--

"And I _did_ say to him times and times, 'Whativer you do, don't go to
law,' and what more could I do? I've had to sit by while my own
fortin's been spent, and what should ha' been my children's, too.
You'll have niver a penny, my boy--but it isn't your poor mother's
fault."

She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with her
helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her,
and she clung to him. For the first time Tom thought of his father
with some reproach. His natural inclination 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 indignation against Wakem there began to mingle some
indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have helped
bringing them all down in the world, and making people talk of them
with contempt, but no one should talk long of Tom Tulliver with
contempt.

The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to
assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his
aunts, and the sense that he must behave like a man and take care of
his mother.

"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be able to get
money; I'll get a situation of some sort."

"Bless you, my boy!" said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed. Then,
looking round sadly, "But I shouldn't ha' minded so much if we could
ha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em."

Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The implied
reproaches against her father--her father, who was lying there in a
sort of living death--neutralized all her pity for griefs about
tablecloths and china; and her anger on her father's account was
heightened by some egoistic resentment at Tom's silent concurrence
with her mother in shutting 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 last in an agitated, almost
violent tone: "Mother, how can you talk so; as if you cared only for
things with _your_ name on, and not for what has my father's name too;
and to care about anything but dear father himself!--when he's lying
there, and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too;
you ought not to let any one find fault with my father."

Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, and
took her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went out to him with
a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame
him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing
had come of it but evil tempers.

Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving
remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enable
her to do or bear anything for his sake.

Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst,--telling _him_ as well
as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learned
better than have those hectoring, assuming manners, 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 how he was moved, she went to him and put her
arm round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children forgot
everything else in the sense that they had one father and one sorrow.

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

completion: Tom and Maggie arrive home to find a bailiff in their house. A bailiff is basically a court officer who collects unpaid fines or, in the case of the Tullivers, comes to repossess their belongings. The kids find Mrs. Tulliver in the storeroom, crying over all her nice belongings. She reminisces about all her stuff and is very upset. She tells the kids that she sent for her sisters and their husbands, and hopes that they'll help the family out with some money. Mrs. Tulliver then starts complaining about how this is all Mr. Tulliver's fault and cries. Tom begins to realize that his dad probably is to blame for all this and decides that no one will ever talk about him with contempt when he is an adult. Maggie starts getting angry at how they are talking about her dad. She scolds her mother about worrying over possessions instead of their dad. Maggie gets very agitated - she hates blame since it never does any good. Tom is shocked at Maggie's outburst and the two siblings go to sit with their dad.


prompt:
Chapter: The Family Council

It was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts and uncles
came to hold their consultation. The fire was lighted in the large
parlor, and poor Mrs. Tulliver, with a confused impression that it was
a great occasion, like a funeral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and
unpinned the curtains, adjusting them in proper folds, looking round
and shaking her head sadly at the polished tops and legs of the
tables, which sister Pullet herself could not accuse of insufficient
brightness.

Mr. Deane was not coming, he was away on business; but Mrs. Deane
appeared punctually in that handsome new gig with the head to it, and
the livery-servant driving it, which had thrown so clear a light on
several traits in her character to some of her female friends in St.
Ogg's. Mr. Deane had been advancing in the world as rapidly as Mr.
Tulliver had been going down in it; and in Mrs. Deane's house the
Dodson linen and plate were beginning to hold quite a subordinate
position, as a mere supplement to the handsomer articles of the same
kind, purchased in recent years,--a change which had caused an
occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse between her and Mrs.
Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting "like the rest," and there
would soon be little of the true Dodson spirit surviving except in
herself, and, it might be hoped, in those nephews who supported the
Dodson name on the family land, far away in the Wolds.

People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those
immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we
consider the remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how
very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why
Homer calls them "blameless."

Mrs. Deane was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her seat in
the large parlor, Mrs. Tulliver came down to her with her comely face
a little distorted, nearly as it would have been if she had been
crying. She was not a woman who could shed abundant tears, except in
moments when the prospect of losing her furniture became unusually
vivid, but she felt how unfitting it was to be quite calm under
present circumstances.

"Oh, sister, what a world this is!" she exclaimed as she entered;
"what trouble, oh dear!"

Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered
speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them afterward to her
husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very properly.

"Yes, sister," she said deliberately, "this is a changing world, and
we don't know to-day what may happen tomorrow. But it's right to be
prepared for all things, and if trouble's sent, to remember as it
isn't sent without a cause. I'm very sorry for you as a sister, and if
the doctor orders jelly for Mr. Tulliver, I hope you'll let me know.
I'll send it willingly; for it is but right he should have proper
attendance while he's ill."

"Thank you, Susan," said Mrs. Tulliver, rather faintly, withdrawing
her fat hand from her sister's thin one. "But there's been no talk o'
jelly yet." Then after a moment's pause she added, "There's a dozen o'
cut jelly-glasses upstairs--I shall never put jelly into 'em no more."

Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words, but the
sound of wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg were come,
and were almost immediately followed by Mr. and Mrs. Pullet.

Mrs. Pullet entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all times, of
expressing what were her views of life in general, and what, in brief,
were the opinions she held concerning the particular case before her.

Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to
have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a
costume selected with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect
humility into Bessy and her children.

"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her husband, unwilling
to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to her.

"You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Glegg," returned this superior
woman; "_you_ can roast yourself, if you like."

"Well," said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly, "and how's the
poor man upstairs?"

"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning," said Mrs.
Tulliver; "he took more notice, and spoke to me; but he's never known
Tom yet,--looks at the poor lad as if he was a stranger, though he
said something once about Tom and the pony. The doctor says his
memory's gone a long way back, and he doesn't know Tom because he's
thinking of him when he was little. Eh dear, eh dear!"

"I doubt it's the water got on his brain," said aunt Pullet, turning
round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at the pier-glass.
"It's much if he ever gets up again; and if he does, he'll most like
be childish, as Mr. Carr was, poor man! They fed him with a spoon as
if he'd been a babby for three year. He'd quite lost the use of his
limbs; but then he'd got a Bath chair, and somebody to draw him; and
that's what you won't have, I doubt, Bessy."

"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "if I understand right,
we've come together this morning to advise and consult about what's to
be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the family, and not to
talk o' people as don't belong to us. Mr. Carr was none of our blood,
nor noways connected with us, as I've ever heared."

"Sister Glegg," said Mrs. Pullet, in a pleading tone, drawing on her
gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated manner, "if
you've got anything disrespectful to say o' Mr. Carr, I do beg of you
as you won't say it to me. _I_ know what he was," she added, with a
sigh; "his breath was short to that degree as you could hear him two
rooms off."

"Sophy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with indignant disgust, "you _do_ talk o'
people's complaints till it's quite undecent. But I say again, as I
said before, I didn't come away from home to talk about acquaintances,
whether they'd short breath or long. If we aren't come together for
one to hear what the other 'ull do to save a sister and her children
from the parish, _I_ shall go back. _One_ can't act without the other,
I suppose; it isn't to be expected as _I_ should do everything."

"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "I don't see as you've been so very
forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the first time as here
you've been, since it's been known as the bailiff's in the house; and
I was here yesterday, and looked at all Bessy's linen and things, and
I told her I'd buy in the spotted tablecloths. I couldn't speak
fairer; for as for the teapot as she doesn't want to go out o' the
family, it stands to sense I can't do with two silver teapots, not if
it _hadn't_ a straight spout, but the spotted damask I was allays fond
on."

"I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and chany and the best
castors needn't be put up for sale," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
beseechingly, "and the sugar-tongs the first things ever I bought."

"But that can't be helped, you know," said Mr. Glegg. "If one o' the
family chooses to buy 'em in, they can, but one thing must be bid for
as well as another."

"And it isn't to be looked for," said uncle Pullet, with unwonted
independence of idea, "as your own family should pay more for things
nor they'll fetch. They may go for an old song by auction."

"Oh dear, oh dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, "to think o' my chany being
sold i' that way, and I bought it when I was married, just as you did
yours, Jane and Sophy; and I know you didn't like mine, because o' the
sprig, but I was fond of it; and there's never been a bit broke, for
I've washed it myself; and there's the tulips on the cups, and the
roses, as anybody might go and look at 'em for pleasure. You wouldn't
like _your_ chany to go for an old song and be broke to pieces, though
yours has got no color in it, Jane,--it's all white and fluted, and
didn't cost so much as mine. And there's the castors, sister Deane, I
can't think but you'd like to have the castors, for I've heard you say
they're pretty."

"Well, I've no objection to buy some of the best things," said Mrs.
Deane, rather loftily; "we can do with extra things in our house."

"Best things!" exclaimed Mrs. Glegg, with severity, which had gathered
intensity from her long silence. "It drives me past patience to hear
you all talking o' best things, and buying in this, that, and the
other, such as silver and chany. You must bring your mind to your
circumstances, Bessy, and not be thinking o' silver and chany; but
whether you shall get so much as a flock-bed to lie on, and a blanket
to cover you, and a stool to sit on. You must remember, if you get
'em, it'll be because your friends have bought 'em for you, for you're
dependent upon _them_ for everything; for your husband lies there
helpless, and hasn't got a penny i' the world to call his own. And
it's for your own good I say this, for it's right you should feel what
your state is, and what disgrace your husband's brought on your own
family, as you've got to look to for everything, and be humble in your
mind."

Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the good of
others is naturally exhausting.

Mrs. Tulliver, always borne down by the family predominance of sister
Jane, who had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very
tender years, said pleadingly:

"I'm sure, sister, I've never asked anybody to do anything, only buy
things as it 'ud be a pleasure to 'em to have, so as they mightn't go
and be spoiled i' strange houses. I never asked anybody to buy the
things in for me and my children; though there's the linen I spun, and
I thought when Tom was born,--I thought one o' the first things when
he was lying i' the cradle, as all the things I'd bought wi' my own
money, and been so careful of, 'ud go to him. But I've said nothing as
I wanted my sisters to pay their money for me. What my husband has
done for _his_ sister's unknown, and we should ha' been better off
this day if it hadn't been as he's lent money and never asked for it
again."

"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, kindly, "don't let us make things too
dark. What's done can't be undone. We shall make a shift among us to
buy what's sufficient for you; though, as Mrs. G. says, they must be
useful, plain things. We mustn't be thinking o' what's unnecessary. A
table, and a chair or two, and kitchen things, and a good bed, and
such-like. Why, I've seen the day when I shouldn't ha' known myself if
I'd lain on sacking i'stead o' the floor. We get a deal o' useless
things about us, only because we've got the money to spend."

"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you'll be kind enough to let me speak,
i'stead o' taking the words out o' my mouth,--I was going to say,
Bessy, as it's fine talking for you to say as you've never asked us to
buy anything for you; let me tell you, you _ought_ to have asked us.
Pray, how are you to be purvided for, if your own family don't help
you? You must go to the parish, if they didn't. And you ought to know
that, and keep it in mind, and ask us humble to do what we can for
you, i'stead o' saying, and making a boast, as you've never asked us
for anything."

"You talked o' the Mosses, and what Mr. Tulliver's done for 'em," said
uncle Pullet, who became unusually suggestive where advances of money
were concerned. "Haven't _they_ been anear you? They ought to do
something as well as other folks; and if he's lent 'em money, they
ought to be made to pay it back."

"Yes, to be sure," said Mrs. Deane; "I've been thinking so. How is it
Mr. and Mrs. Moss aren't here to meet us? It is but right they should
do their share."

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, "I never sent 'em word about Mr.
Tulliver, and they live so back'ard among the lanes at Basset, they
niver hear anything only when Mr. Moss comes to market. But I niver
gave 'em a thought. I wonder Maggie didn't, though, for she was allays
so fond of her aunt Moss."

"Why don't your children come in, Bessy?" said Mrs. Pullet, at the
mention of Maggie. "They should hear what their aunts and uncles have
got to say; and Maggie,--when it's me as have paid for half her
schooling, she ought to think more of her aunt Pullet than of aunt
Moss. I may go off sudden when I get home to-day; there's no telling."

"If I'd had _my_ way," said Mrs. Glegg, "the children 'ud ha' been in
the room from the first. It's time they knew who they've to look to,
and it's right as _somebody_ should talk to 'em, and let 'em know
their condition i' life, and what they're come down to, and make 'em
feel as they've got to suffer for their father's faults."

"Well, I'll go and fetch 'em, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, resignedly.
She was quite crushed now, and thought of the treasures in the
storeroom with no other feeling than blank despair.

She went upstairs to fetch Tom and Maggie, who were both in their
father's room, and was on her way down again, when the sight of the
storeroom door suggested a new thought to her. She went toward it, and
left the children to go down by themselves.

The aunts and uncles appeared to have been in warm discussion when the
brother and sister entered,--both with shrinking reluctance; for
though Tom, with a practical sagacity which had been roused into
activity by the strong stimulus of the new emotions he had undergone
since yesterday, had been turning over in his mind a plan which he
meant to propose to one of his aunts or uncles, he felt by no means
amicably toward them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as he would
have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which was but just
endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie, she was peculiarly
depressed this morning; she had been called up, after brief rest, at
three o'clock, and had that strange dreamy weariness which comes from
watching in a sick-room through the chill hours of early twilight and
breaking day,--in which the outside day-light life seems to have no
importance, and to be a mere margin to the hours in the darkened
chamber. Their entrance interrupted the conversation. The shaking of
hands was a melancholy and silent ceremony, till uncle Pullet
observed, as Tom approached him:

"Well, young sir, we've been talking as we should want your pen and
ink; you can write rarely now, after all your schooling, I should
think."

"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he meant to be kind,
"we must look to see the good of all this schooling, as your father's
sunk so much money in, now,--

  'When land is gone and money's spent,
  Then learning is most excellent.'

Now's the time, Tom, to let us see the good o' your learning. Let us
see whether you can do better than I can, as have made my fortin
without it. But I began wi' doing with little, you see; I could live
on a basin o' porridge and a crust o' bread-and-cheese. But I doubt
high living and high learning 'ull make it harder for you, young man,
nor it was for me."

"But he must do it," interposed aunt Glegg, energetically, "whether
it's hard or no. He hasn't got to consider what's hard; he must
consider as he isn't to trusten to his friends to keep him in idleness
and luxury; he's got to bear the fruits of his father's misconduct,
and bring his mind to fare hard and to work hard. And he must be
humble and grateful to his aunts and uncles for what they're doing for
his mother and father, as must be turned out into the streets and go
to the workhouse if they didn't help 'em. And his sister, too,"
continued Mrs. Glegg, looking severely at Maggie, who had sat down on
the sofa by her aunt Deane, drawn to her by the sense that she was
Lucy's mother, "she must make up her mind to be humble and work; for
there'll be no servants to wait on her any more,--she must remember
that. She must do the work o' the house, and she must respect and love
her aunts as have done so much for her, and saved their money to leave
to their nepheys and nieces."

Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the group.
There was a heightened color in his face, and he was very far from
looking humbled, but he was preparing to say, in a respectful tone,
something he had previously meditated, when the door opened and his
mother re-entered.

Poor Mrs. Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which she had
placed her silver teapot, a specimen teacup and saucer, the castors,
and sugar-tongs.

"See here, sister," she said, looking at Mrs. Deane, as she set the
tray on the table, "I thought, perhaps, if you looked at the teapot
again,--it's a good while since you saw it,--you might like the
pattern better; it makes beautiful tea, and there's a stand and
everything; you might use it for every day, or else lay it by for Lucy
when she goes to housekeeping. I should be so loath for 'em to buy it
at the Golden Lion," said the poor woman, her heart swelling, and the
tears coming,--"my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to think
of its being scratched, and set before the travellers and folks, and
my letters on it,--see here, E. D.,--and everybody to see 'em."

"Ah, dear, dear!" said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with deep
sadness, "it's very bad,--to think o' the family initials going about
everywhere--it niver was so before; you're a very unlucky sister,
Bessy. But what's the use o' buying the teapot, when there's the linen
and spoons and everything to go, and some of 'em with your full
name,--and when it's got that straight spout, too."

"As to disgrace o' the family," said Mrs. Glegg, "that can't be helped
wi' buying teapots. The disgrace is, for one o' the family to ha'
married a man as has brought her to beggary. The disgrace is, as
they're to be sold up. We can't hinder the country from knowing that."

Maggie had started up from the sofa at the allusion to her father, but
Tom saw her action and flushed face in time to prevent her from
speaking. "Be quiet, Maggie," he said authoritatively, pushing her
aside. It was a remarkable manifestation of self-command and practical
judgment in a lad of fifteen, that when his aunt Glegg ceased, he
began to speak in a quiet and respectful manner, though with a good
deal of trembling in his voice; for his mother's words had cut him to
the quick.

"Then, aunt," he said, looking straight at Mrs. Glegg, "if you think
it's a disgrace to the family that we should be sold up, wouldn't it
be better to prevent it altogether? And if you and aunt Pullet," he
continued, looking at the latter, "think of leaving any money to me
and Maggie, wouldn't it be better to give it now, and pay the debt
we're going to be sold up for, and save my mother from parting with
her furniture?"

There was silence for a few moments, for every one, including Maggie,
was astonished at Tom's sudden manliness of tone. Uncle Glegg was the
first to speak.

"Ay, ay, young man, come now! You show some notion o' things. But
there's the interest, you must remember; your aunts get five per cent
on their money, and they'd lose that if they advanced it; you haven't
thought o' that."

"I could work and pay that every year," said Tom, promptly. "I'd do
anything to save my mother from parting with her things."

"Well done!" said uncle Glegg, admiringly. He had been drawing Tom
out, rather than reflecting on the practicability of his proposal. But
he had produced the unfortunate result of irritating his wife.

"Yes, Mr. Glegg!" said that lady, with angry sarcasm. "It's pleasant
work for you to be giving my money away, as you've pretended to leave
at my own disposal. And my money, as was my own father's gift, and not
yours, Mr. Glegg; and I've saved it, and added to it myself, and had
more to put out almost every year, and it's to go and be sunk in other
folks' furniture, and encourage 'em in luxury and extravagance as
they've no means of supporting; and I'm to alter my will, or have a
codicil made, and leave two or three hundred less behind me when I
die,--me as have allays done right and been careful, and the eldest o'
the family; and my money's to go and be squandered on them as have had
the same chance as me, only they've been wicked and wasteful. Sister
Pullet, _you_ may do as you like, and you may let your husband rob you
back again o' the money he's given you, but that isn't _my_ sperrit."

"La, Jane, how fiery you are!" said Mrs. Pullet. "I'm sure you'll have
the blood in your head, and have to be cupped. I'm sorry for Bessy and
her children,--I'm sure I think of 'em o' nights dreadful, for I sleep
very bad wi' this new medicine,--but it's no use for me to think o'
doing anything, if you won't meet me half-way."

"Why, there's this to be considered," said Mr. Glegg. "It's no use to
pay off this debt and save the furniture, when there's all the law
debts behind, as 'ud take every shilling, and more than could be made
out o' land and stock, for I've made that out from Lawyer Gore. We'd
need save our money to keep the poor man with, instead o' spending it
on furniture as he can neither eat nor drink. You _will_ be so hasty,
Jane, as if I didn't know what was reasonable."

"Then speak accordingly, Mr. Glegg!" said his wife, with slow, loud
emphasis, bending her head toward him significantly.

Tom's countenance had fallen during this conversation, and his lip
quivered; but he was determined not to give way. He would behave like
a man. Maggie, on the contrary, after her momentary delight in Tom's
speech, had relapsed into her state of trembling indignation. Her
mother had been standing close by Tom's side, and had been clinging to
his arm ever since he had last spoken; Maggie suddenly started up and
stood in front of them, her eyes flashing like the eyes of a young
lioness.

"Why do you come, then," she burst out, "talking and interfering with
us and scolding us, if you don't mean to do anything to help my poor
mother--your own sister,--if you've no feeling for her when she's in
trouble, and won't part with anything, though you would never miss it,
to save her from pain? Keep away from us then, and don't come to find
fault with my father,--he was better than any of you; he was kind,--he
would have helped _you_, if you had been in trouble. Tom and I don't
ever want to have any of your money, if you won't help my mother. We'd
rather not have it! We'll do without you."

Maggie, having hurled her defiance at aunts and uncles in this way,
stood still, with her large dark eyes glaring at them, as if she were
ready to await all consequences.

Mrs. Tulliver was frightened; there was something portentous in this
mad outbreak; she did not see how life could go on after it. Tom was
vexed; it was no _use_ to talk so. The aunts were silent with surprise
for some moments. At length, in a case of aberration such as this,
comment presented itself as more expedient than any answer.

"You haven't seen the end o' your trouble wi' that child, Bessy," said
Mrs. Pullet; "she's beyond everything for boldness and unthankfulness.
It's dreadful. I might ha' let alone paying for her schooling, for
she's worse nor ever."

"It's no more than what I've allays said," followed Mrs. Glegg. "Other
folks may be surprised, but I'm not. I've said over and over
again,--years ago I've said,--'Mark my words; that child 'ull come to
no good; there isn't a bit of our family in her.' And as for her
having so much schooling, I never thought well o' that. I'd my reasons
when I said _I_ wouldn't pay anything toward it."

"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, "let's waste no more time in
talking,--let's go to business. Tom, now, get the pen and ink----"

While Mr. Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen hurrying
past the window.

"Why, there's Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Tulliver. "The bad news must ha'
reached her, then"; and she went out to open the door, Maggie eagerly
following her.

"That's fortunate," said Mrs. Glegg. "She can agree to the list o'
things to be bought in. It's but right she should do her share when
it's her own brother."

Mrs. Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs. Tulliver's
movement, as she drew her into the parlor automatically, without
reflecting that it was hardly kind to take her among so many persons
in the first painful moment of arrival. The tall, worn, dark-haired
woman was a strong contrast to the Dodson sisters as she entered in
her shabby dress, with her shawl and bonnet looking as if they had
been hastily huddled on, and with that entire absence of
self-consciousness which belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was
clinging to her arm; and Mrs. Moss seemed to notice no one else except
Tom, whom she went straight up to and took by the hand.

"Oh, my dear children," she burst out, "you've no call to think well
o' me; I'm a poor aunt to you, for I'm one o' them as take all and
give nothing. How's my poor brother?"

"Mr. Turnbull thinks he'll get better," said Maggie. "Sit down, aunt
Gritty. Don't fret."

"Oh, my sweet child, I feel torn i' two," said Mrs. Moss, allowing
Maggie to lead her to the sofa, but still not seeming to notice the
presence of the rest. "We've three hundred pounds o' my brother's
money, and now he wants it, and you all want it, poor things!--and yet
we must be sold up to pay it, and there's my poor children,--eight of
'em, and the little un of all can't speak plain. And I feel as if I
was a robber. But I'm sure I'd no thought as my brother----"

The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob.

"Three hundred pounds! oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, who, when
she had said that her husband had done "unknown" things for his
sister, had not had any particular sum in her mind, and felt a wife's
irritation at having been kept in the dark.

"What madness, to be sure!" said Mrs. Glegg. "A man with a family!
He'd no right to lend his money i' that way; and without security,
I'll be bound, if the truth was known."

Mrs. Glegg's voice had arrested Mrs. Moss's attention, and looking up,
she said:

"Yes, there _was_ security; my husband gave a note for it. We're not
that sort o' people, neither of us, as 'ud rob my brother's children;
and we looked to paying back the money, when the times got a bit
better."

"Well, but now," said Mr. Glegg, gently, "hasn't your husband no way
o' raising this money? Because it 'ud be a little fortin, like, for
these folks, if we can do without Tulliver's being made a bankrupt.
Your husband's got stock; it is but right he should raise the money,
as it seems to me,--not but what I'm sorry for you, Mrs. Moss."

"Oh, sir, you don't know what bad luck my husband's had with his
stock. The farm's suffering so as never was for want o' stock; and
we've sold all the wheat, and we're behind with our rent,--not but
what we'd like to do what's right, and I'd sit up and work half the
night, if it 'ud be any good; but there's them poor children,--four of
'em such little uns----"

"Don't cry so, aunt; don't fret," whispered Maggie, who had kept hold
of Mrs. Moss's hand.

"Did Mr. Tulliver let you have the money all at once?" said Mrs.
Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which had been "going
on" without her knowledge.

"No; at twice," said Mrs. Moss, rubbing her eyes and making an effort
to restrain her tears. "The last was after my bad illness four years
ago, as everything went wrong, and there was a new note made then.
What with illness and bad luck, I've been nothing but cumber all my
life."

"Yes, Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Glegg, with decision, "yours is a very
unlucky family; the more's the pity for _my_ sister."

"I set off in the cart as soon as ever I heard o' what had happened,"
said Mrs. Moss, looking at Mrs. Tulliver. "I should never ha' stayed
away all this while, if you'd thought well to let me know. And it
isn't as I'm thinking all about ourselves, and nothing about my
brother, only the money was so on my mind, I couldn't help speaking
about it. And my husband and me desire to do the right thing, sir,"
she added, looking at Mr. Glegg, "and we'll make shift and pay the
money, come what will, if that's all my brother's got to trust to.
We've been used to trouble, and don't look for much else. It's only
the thought o' my poor children pulls me i' two."

"Why, there's this to be thought on, Mrs. Moss," said Mr. Glegg, "and
it's right to warn you,--if Tulliver's made a bankrupt, and he's got a
note-of-hand of your husband's for three hundred pounds, you'll be
obliged to pay it; th' assignees 'ull come on you for it."

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, thinking of the bankruptcy,
and not of Mrs. Moss's concern in it. Poor Mrs. Moss herself listened
in trembling submission, while Maggie looked with bewildered distress
at Tom to see if _he_ showed any signs of understanding this trouble,
and caring about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with
his eyes on the tablecloth.

"And if he isn't made bankrupt," continued Mr. Glegg, "as I said
before, three hundred pounds 'ud be a little fortin for him, poor man.
We don't know but what he may be partly helpless, if he ever gets up
again. I'm very sorry if it goes hard with you, Mrs. Moss, but my
opinion is, looking at it one way, it'll be right for you to raise the
money; and looking at it th' other way, you'll be obliged to pay it.
You won't think ill o' me for speaking the truth."

"Uncle," said Tom, looking up suddenly from his meditative view of the
tablecloth, "I don't think it would be right for my aunt Moss to pay
the money if it would be against my father's will for her to pay it;
would it?"

Mr. Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said: "Why,
no, perhaps not, Tom; but then he'd ha' destroyed the note, you know.
We must look for the note. What makes you think it 'ud be against his
will?"

"Why," said Tom, coloring, but trying to speak firmly, in spite of a
boyish tremor, "I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr.
Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the
fire together, and no one else was in the room----"

Tom hesitated a little, and then went on.

"He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said: 'I've always
been good to my sister, though she married against my will, and I've
lent Moss money; but I shall never think of distressing him to pay it;
I'd rather lose it. My children must not mind being the poorer for
that.' And now my father's ill, and not able to speak for himself, I
shouldn't like anything to be done contrary to what he said to me."

"Well, but then, my boy," said Uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led him
to enter into Tom's wish, but who could not at once shake off his
habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities, or
alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference
in a man's property, "we should have to make away wi' the note, you
know, if we're to guard against what may happen, supposing your
father's made bankrupt----"

"Mr. Glegg," interrupted his wife, severely, "mind what you're saying.
You're putting yourself very forrard in other folks's business. If you
speak rash, don't say it was my fault."

"That's such a thing as I never heared of before," said uncle Pullet,
who had been making haste with his lozenge in order to express his
amazement,--"making away with a note! I should think anybody could set
the constable on you for it."

"Well, but," said Mrs. Tulliver, "if the note's worth all that money,
why can't we pay it away, and save my things from going away? We've no
call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your
father 'ud be angry when he gets well."

Mrs. Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was
straining her mind after original ideas on the subject.

"Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don't understand these things," said
uncle Glegg. "There's no way o' making it safe for Mr. and Mrs. Moss
but destroying the note."

"Then I hope you'll help me do it, uncle," said Tom, earnestly. "If my
father shouldn't get well, I should be very unhappy to think anything
had been done against his will that I could hinder. And I'm sure he
meant me to remember what he said that evening. I ought to obey my
father's wish about his property."

Even Mrs. Glegg could not withhold her approval from Tom's words; she
felt that the Dodson blood was certainly speaking in him, though, if
his father had been a Dodson, there would never have been this wicked
alienation of money. Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from
leaping on Tom's neck, if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by
herself rising and taking Tom's hand, while she said, with rather a
choked voice:

"You'll never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there's a God
above; and if the money's wanted for your father, Moss and me 'ull pay
it, the same as if there was ever such security. We'll do as we'd be
done by; for if my children have got no other luck, they've got an
honest father and mother."

"Well," said Mr. Glegg, who had been meditating after Tom's words, "we
shouldn't be doing any wrong by the creditors, supposing your father
_was_ bankrupt. I've been thinking o' that, for I've been a creditor
myself, and seen no end o' cheating. If he meant to give your aunt the
money before ever he got into this sad work o' lawing, it's the same
as if he'd made away with the note himself; for he'd made up his mind
to be that much poorer. But there's a deal o' things to be considered,
young man," Mr. Glegg added, looking admonishingly at Tom, "when you
come to money business, and you may be taking one man's dinner away to
make another man's breakfast. You don't understand that, I doubt?"

"Yes, I do," said Tom, decidedly. "I know if I owe money to one man,
I've no right to give it to another. But if my father had made up his
mind to give my aunt the money before he was in debt, he had a right
to do it."

"Well done, young man! I didn't think you'd been so sharp," said uncle
Glegg, with much candor. "But perhaps your father _did_ make away with
the note. Let us go and see if we can find it in the chest."

"It's in my father's room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty," whispered
Maggie.

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

completion: The aunts and uncles descend once again on the Tulliver house. Mrs. Deane arrives first in a fancy carriage. Her husband is away on business. The wealthy Mrs. Deane comforts Mrs. Tulliver with some useless platitudes, or meaningless sayings, like 'tomorrow may be better.' Mrs. Tulliver quickly begins talking up her household merchandise in the hopes that Mrs. Deane will buy some of it. The Gleggs and Pullets arrive. Mrs. Pullet is crying. Mr. Glegg is in a good mood. Mrs. Glegg is in a bad mood. And Mr. Pullet is quiet. So, business as usual. The aunts and uncles bicker as usual and we learn that the Pullets will only buy things from Mrs. Tulliver that they actually need or plan to use. Mrs. Deane says she'll buy some of the best things. Mrs. Glegg basically tells Mrs. Tulliver to prepare to go live in the poor house and be completely broke. And Mr. Glegg says he'll buy some stuff as long as it's useful to him. Nice to see that, in a family crisis, the aunts and uncles all think of themselves. Mrs. Tulliver realizes that she forgot to send word to the Moss family about what happened. Tom and Maggie come down and Mrs. Glegg quickly starts lecturing them about being humble and talks about what a disgrace it all is, while Mrs. Tulliver continues to try to sell her belongings to her family, as if she were on an infomercial. Tom gets frustrated and asks the aunts and uncles to help out and prevent the disgrace from happening in the first place. Mr. Glegg is pleased by Tom's bold statement, but he, along with the others, points out that it won't do any good to save the furniture when there are more severe debts, like the legal ones, to be considered. The furniture will be sold regardless, in other words. Maggie finally has had enough and berates her aunts and uncles for behaving selfishly and for not helping them out at all. The aunts and uncles respond by saying that Maggie will grow up to be no good. Suddenly Mrs. Moss arrives to offer moral support. Mrs. Moss lets it slip that she owes the Tullivers three hundred pounds and everyone freaks out. Mr. Glegg is sympathetic to Mrs. Moss, but says that she really ought to pay back the money now. Tom breaks in and objects to this, though. He says that his father didn't want the Moss family to have to pay back the money and that Mr. Tulliver wanted to take care of his sister as best he could. Though the others protest, Mr. Glegg agrees to help Tom destroy the note saying that the Moss family owes the Tullivers money. That way officials won't come to collect the money after Mr. Tulliver is declared bankrupt, which seems likely.


prompt:
Chapter: A Vanishing Gleam

Mr. Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had
recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his
horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and
entrances into his room were not felt to be of great importance. He
had lain so still, with his eyes closed, all this morning, that Maggie
told her aunt Moss she must not expect her father to take any notice
of them.

They entered very quietly, and Mrs. Moss took her seat near the head
of the bed, while Maggie sat in her old place on the bed, and put her
hand on her father's without causing any change in his face.

Mr. Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and were busy
selecting the key of the old oak chest from the bunch which Tom had
brought from his father's bureau. They succeeded in opening the
chest,--which stood opposite the foot of Mr. Tulliver's bed,--and
propping the lid with the iron holder, without much noise.

"There's a tin box," whispered Mr. Glegg; "he'd most like put a small
thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom; but I'll just lift up
these deeds,--they're the deeds o' the house and mill, I suppose,--and
see what there is under 'em."

Mr. Glegg had lifted out the parchments, and had fortunately drawn
back a little, when the iron holder gave way, and the heavy lid fell
with a loud bang that resounded over the house.

Perhaps there was something in that sound more than the mere fact of
the strong vibration that produced the instantaneous effect on the
frame of the prostrate man, and for the time completely shook off the
obstruction of paralysis. The chest had belonged to his father and his
father's father, and it had always been rather a solemn business to
visit it. All long-known objects, even a mere window fastening or a
particular door-latch, have sounds which are a sort of recognized
voice to us,--a voice that will thrill and awaken, when it has been
used to touch deep-lying fibres. In the same moment, when all the eyes
in the room were turned upon him, he started up and looked at the
chest, the parchments in Mr. Glegg's hand, and Tom holding the tin
box, with a glance of perfect consciousness and recognition.

"What are you going to do with those deeds?" he said, in his ordinary
tone of sharp questioning whenever he was irritated. "Come here, Tom.
What do you do, going to my chest?"

Tom obeyed, with some trembling; it was the first time his father had
recognized him. But instead of saying anything more to him, his father
continued to look with a growing distinctness of suspicion at Mr.
Glegg and the deeds.

"What's been happening, then?" he said sharply. "What are you meddling
with my deeds for? Is Wakem laying hold of everything? Why don't you
tell me what you've been a-doing?" he added impatiently, as Mr. Glegg
advanced to the foot of the bed before speaking.

"No, no, friend Tulliver," said Mr. Glegg, in a soothing tone.
"Nobody's getting hold of anything as yet. We only came to look and
see what was in the chest. You've been ill, you know, and we've had to
look after things a bit. But let's hope you'll soon be well enough to
attend to everything yourself."

Mr. Tulliver looked around him meditatively, at Tom, at Mr. Glegg, and
at Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware that some one was seated by
his side at the head of the bed he turned sharply round and saw his
sister.

"Eh, Gritty!" he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone in which he
had been wont to speak to her. "What! you're there, are you? How could
you manage to leave the children?"

"Oh, brother!" said good Mrs. Moss, too impulsive to be prudent, "I'm
thankful I'm come now to see you yourself again; I thought you'd never
know us any more."

"What! have I had a stroke?" said Mr. Tulliver, anxiously, looking at
Mr. Glegg.

"A fall from your horse--shook you a bit,--that's all, I think," said
Mr. Glegg. "But you'll soon get over it, let's hope."

Mr. Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained silent
for two or three minutes. A new shadow came over his face. He looked
up at Maggie first, and said in a lower tone, "You got the letter,
then, my wench?"

"Yes, father," she said, kissing him with a full heart. She felt as if
her father were come back to her from the dead, and her yearning to
show him how she had always loved him could be fulfilled.

"Where's your mother?" he said, so preoccupied that he received the
kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it.

"She's downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?"

"Ay, ay; poor Bessy!" and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left
the room.

"You'll have to take care of 'em both if I die, you know, Tom. You'll
be badly off, I doubt. But you must see and pay everybody. And
mind,--there's fifty pound o' Luke's as I put into the business,--he
gave me a bit at a time, and he's got nothing to show for it. You must
pay him first thing."

Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more concerned
than ever, but Tom said firmly:

"Yes, father. And haven't you a note from my uncle Moss for three
hundred pounds? We came to look for that. What do you wish to be done
about it, father?"

"Ah! I'm glad you thought o' that, my lad," said Mr. Tulliver. "I
allays meant to be easy about that money, because o' your aunt. You
mustn't mind losing the money, if they can't pay it,--and it's like
enough they can't. The note's in that box, mind! I allays meant to be
good to you, Gritty," said Mr. Tulliver, turning to his sister; "but
you know you aggravated me when you would have Moss."

At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who came in much
agitated by the news that her husband was quite himself again.

"Well, Bessy," he said, as she kissed him, "you must forgive me if
you're worse off than you ever expected to be. But it's the fault o'
the law,--it's none o' mine," he added angrily. "It's the fault o'
raskills. Tom, you mind this: if ever you've got the chance, you make
Wakem smart. If you don't, you're a good-for-nothing son. You might
horse-whip him, but he'd set the law on you,--the law's made to take
care o' raskills."

Mr. Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush was on his
face. Mr. Glegg wanted to say something soothing, but he was prevented
by Mr. Tulliver's speaking again to his wife. "They'll make a shift to
pay everything, Bessy," he said, "and yet leave you your furniture;
and your sisters'll do something for you--and Tom'll grow up--though
what he's to be I don't know--I've done what I could--I've given him a
eddication--and there's the little wench, she'll get married--but it's
a poor tale----"

The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted, and with
the last words the poor man fell again, rigid and insensible. Though
this was only a recurrence of what had happened before, it struck all
present as if it had been death, not only from its contrast with the
completeness of the revival, but because his words had all had
reference to the possibility that his death was near. But with poor
Tulliver death was not to be a leap; it was to be a long descent under
thickening shadows.

Mr. Turnbull was sent for; but when he heard what had passed, he said
this complete restoration, though only temporary, was a hopeful sign,
proving that there was no permanent lesion to prevent ultimate
recovery.

Among the threads of the past which the stricken man had gathered up,
he had omitted the bill of sale; the flash of memory had only lit up
prominent ideas, and he sank into forgetfulness again with half his
humiliation unlearned.

But Tom was clear upon two points,--that his uncle Moss's note must be
destroyed; and that Luke's money must be paid, if in no other way, out
of his own and Maggie's money now in the savings bank. There were
subjects, you perceive, on which Tom was much quicker than on the
niceties of classical construction, or the relations of a mathematical
demonstration.

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

completion: Mr. Glegg, Tom, and Maggie head upstairs to destroy the note saying that Mr. Moss owes Mr. Tulliver money. The note is in a chest in Mr. Tulliver's room. Mr. Glegg accidentally drops the chest, which wakes up Mr. Tulliver. Mr. Tulliver is aware of what's going on for the first time in days and begins questioning everyone. Mrs. Moss comes upstairs to check on her brother. Mr. Tulliver tells them to get his wife. Mr. Tulliver doesn't seem to realize the severity of his financial situation. He tells Tom to destroy the note and he also tells Tom to pay back the money owed to Luke, their mill employee. Mrs. Tulliver arrives and Mr. Tulliver apologizes to her and worries about his children's future. He starts drifting off again. The narrator hints that Mr. Tulliver's death will be a slow, long decline. Tom is determined to do what his father wishes.