prompt:
Chapter: Another Love-Scene

Early in the following April, nearly a year after that dubious parting
you have just witnessed, you may, if you like, again see Maggie
entering the Red Deeps through the group of Scotch firs. But it is
early afternoon and not evening, and the edge of sharpness in the
spring air makes her draw her large shawl close about her and trip
along rather quickly; though she looks round, as usual, that she may
take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager,
inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is
hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the
right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing.

"Take back your _Corinne_," said Maggie, drawing a book from under her
shawl. "You were right in telling me she would do me no good; but you
were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her."

"Wouldn't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?" said
Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the
clouds that promises us a bright heaven once more.

"Not at all," said Maggie, laughing. "The Muses were uncomfortable
goddesses, I think,--obliged always to carry rolls and musical
instruments about with them. If I carried a harp in this climate, you
know, I must have a green baize cover for it; and I should be sure to
leave it behind me by mistake."

"You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?"

"I didn't finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I came to the
blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and
determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light-complexioned
girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable.
I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women
carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice
against them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark
woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to avenge Rebecca
and Flora MacIvor and Minna, and all the rest of the dark unhappy
ones. Since you are my tutor, you ought to preserve my mind from
prejudices; you are always arguing against prejudices."

"Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your own person, and
carry away all the love from your cousin Lucy. She is sure to have
some handsome young man of St. Ogg's at her feet now; and you have
only to shine upon him--your fair little cousin will be quite quenched
in your beams."

"Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything
real," said Maggie, looking hurt. "As if I, with my old gowns and want
of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy,--who
knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier
than I am,--even if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her
rival. Besides, I never go to aunt Deane's when any one is there; it
is only because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she comes to see
me, and will have me go to see her sometimes."

"Maggie," said Philip, with surprise, "it is not like you to take
playfulness literally. You must have been in St. Ogg's this morning,
and brought away a slight infection of dulness."

"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "if you meant that for a joke, it was a
poor one; but I thought it was a very good reproof. I thought you
wanted to remind me that I am vain, and wish every one to admire me
most. But it isn't for that that I'm jealous for the dark women,--not
because I'm dark myself; it's because I always care the most about the
unhappy people. If the blond girl were forsaken, I should like _her_
best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories."

"Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself, should
you, Maggie?" said Philip, flushing a little.

"I don't know," said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a bright smile,
"I think perhaps I could if he were very conceited; and yet, if he got
extremely humiliated afterward, I should relent."

"I've often wondered, Maggie," Philip said, with some effort, "whether
you wouldn't really be more likely to love a man that other women were
not likely to love."

"That would depend on what they didn't like him for," said Maggie,
laughing. "He might be very disagreeable. He might look at me through
an eye-glass stuck in his eye, making a hideous face, as young Torry
does. I should think other women are not fond of that; but I never
felt any pity for young Torry. I've never any pity for conceited
people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them."

"But suppose, Maggie,--suppose it was a man who was not conceited, who
felt he had nothing to be conceited about; who had been marked from
childhood for a peculiar kind of suffering, and to whom you were the
day-star of his life; who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that
he felt it happiness enough for him if you would let him see you at
rare moments----"

Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession should cut
short this very happiness,--a pang of the same dread that had kept his
love mute through long months. A rush of self-consciousness told him
that he was besotted to have said all this. Maggie's manner this
morning had been as unconstrained and indifferent as ever.

But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the unusual
emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quickly to look at him; and
as he went on speaking, a great change came over her face,--a flush
and slight spasm of the features, such as we see in people who hear
some news that will require them to readjust their conceptions of the
past. She was quite silent, and walking on toward the trunk of a
fallen tree, she sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her
muscles. She was trembling.

"Maggie," said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh
moment of silence, "I was a fool to say it; forget that I've said it.
I shall be contented if things can be as they were."

The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say something. "I am
so surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it." And the effort to say
this brought the tears down too.

"Has it made you hate me, Maggie?" said Philip, impetuously. "Do you
think I'm a presumptuous fool?"

"Oh, Philip!" said Maggie, "how can you think I have such feelings? As
if I were not grateful for _any_ love. But--but I had never thought of
your being my lover. It seemed so far off--like a dream--only like one
of the stories one imagines--that I should ever have a lover."

"Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie?" said Philip,
seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in the elation of a
sudden hope. "_Do_ you love me?"

Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not easy to
answer. But her eyes met Philip's, which were in this moment liquid
and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet
with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.

"I think I could hardly love any one better; there is nothing but what
I love you for." She paused a little while, and then added: "But it
will be better for us not to say any more about it, won't it, dear
Philip? You know we couldn't even be friends, if our friendship were
discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about
seeing you, though it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now
the fear comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to evil."

"But no evil has come, Maggie; and if you had been guided by that fear
before, you would only have lived through another dreary, benumbing
year, instead of reviving into your real self."

Maggie shook her head. "It has been very sweet, I know,--all the
talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk
to look forward to, when I could tell you the thoughts that had come
into my head while I was away from you. But it has made me restless;
it has made me think a great deal about the world; and I have
impatient thoughts again,--I get weary of my home; and then it cuts me
to the heart afterward, that I should ever have felt weary of my
father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was
better--better for me--for then my selfish desires were benumbed."

Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward
impatiently.

"No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I've often told
you. What you call self-conquest--binding and deafening yourself to
all but one train of impressions--is only the culture of monomania in
a nature like yours."

He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again
and took her hand.

"Don't think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our love. If you
can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be
overcome in time; we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me,
Maggie; tell me again it is possible for you to love me. Don't look
away from me to that cloven tree; it is a bad omen."

She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile.

"Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at
Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me,--don't you
remember?--and you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You
never kept the promise."

The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to
Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him
almost as simply and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years
old. Philip's eyes flashed with delight, but his next words were words
of discontent.

"You don't seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to say
you love me, out of pity."

"No, Philip," said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish way;
"I'm telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; but I
don't think I could love any one better than I love you. I should like
always to live with you--to make you happy. I have always been happy
when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for
your sake; I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never
ask that from me."

"No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything; I'll wait
another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place
in your heart."

"No," said Maggie, smiling, "I won't make you wait so long as that."
But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose from her
seat,--

"But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is quite
impossible we can ever be more than friends,--brother and sister in
secret, as we have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else."

"No, Maggie, I can't give you up,--unless you are deceiving me; unless
you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the
truth."

"Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being
with you,--since I was a little girl,--the days Tom was good to me?
And your mind is a sort of world to me; you can tell me all I want to
know. I think I should never be tired of being with you."

They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other; Maggie, indeed,
was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense
that their parting was near made her more anxious lest she should have
unintentionally left some painful impression on Philip's mind. It was
one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and
deceptive; when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves
floodmarks which are never reached again.

They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.

"Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and I shall be happier
than other men, in spite of all? We _do_ belong to each other--for
always--whether we are apart or together?"

"Yes, Philip; I should like never to part; I should like to make your
life very happy."

"I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it will come."

Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her tall head
to kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love,--like a
woman's.

She had a moment of real happiness then,--a moment of belief that, if
there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more
satisfying.

She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour since she
had trodden this road before, a new era had begun for her. The tissue
of vague dreams must now get narrower and narrower, and all the
threads of thought and emotion be gradually absorbed in the woof of
her actual daily life.

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

completion: It is April nearly a year later. Maggie is returning a book to Philip in the Red Deeps. She tells him she disliked the book because the fair-haired heroine once again won away all the love from the dark woman. She says she wants to avenge all the "dark unhappy ones." Philip tells her that perhaps she will do so by carrying away all the love from her cousin Lucy, who "is sure to have some handsome young man of St. Ogg's at her feet now." Maggie does not like to have her nonsense applied to anything real, and she would never be Lucy's rival. She says she is not jealous for herself, but for "unhappy people," and she always takes the side of the "rejected lover." Philip asks if she would reject one herself, and when she playfully says she might if he were conceited, he asks her to suppose it were someone who "had nothing to be conceited about," who loved her and was happy to see her at rare moments. Maggie, aware that he is declaring his love, falls silent. Philip asks her to forget what he has said, but she says that though she has never thought of him as a lover, she does love him. However, she asks that no more be said about it lest it "lead to evil." He tells her their love can overcome any obstacle and he reminds her of her long-ago promise to kiss him. She does so now; but Philip is still not content, for Maggie seems unhappy. She reminds him that she can never injure her father and that they can never be more than friends. As they part she fears she has unintentionally hurt Philip. She tells him she should like "never to part, one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive," when feeling is at a height not reached again.


prompt:
Chapter: The Cloven Tree

Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any programme
our fear has sketched out. Fear is almost always haunted by terrible
dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of the best-argued probabilities
against them; and during a year that Maggie had had the burthen of
concealment on her mind, the possibility of discovery had continually
presented itself under the form of a sudden meeting with her father or
Tom when she was walking with Philip in the Red Deeps. She was aware
that this was not one of the most likely events; but it was the scene
that most completely symbolized her inward dread. Those slight
indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial
coincidences and incalculable states of mind, are the favorite
machinery of Fact, but are not the stuff in which Imagination is apt
to work.

Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie's fears were furthest
from troubling themselves was her aunt Pullet, on whom, seeing that
she did not live in St. Ogg's, and was neither sharp-eyed nor
sharp-tempered, it would surely have been quite whimsical of them to
fix rather than on aunt Glegg. And yet the channel of fatality--the
pathway of the lightning--was no other than aunt Pullet. She did not
live at St. Ogg's, but the road from Garum Firs lay by the Red Deeps,
at the end opposite that by which Maggie entered.

The day after Maggie's last meeting with Philip, being a Sunday on
which Mr. Pullet was bound to appear in funeral hatband and scarf at
St. Ogg's church, Mrs. Pullet made this the occasion of dining with
sister Glegg, and taking tea with poor sister Tulliver. Sunday was the
one day in the week on which Tom was at home in the afternoon; and
today the brighter spirits he had been in of late had flowed over in
unusually cheerful open chat with his father, and in the invitation,
"Come, Magsie, you come too!" when he strolled out with his mother in
the garden to see the advancing cherry-blossoms. He had been better
pleased with Maggie since she had been less odd and ascetic; he was
even getting rather proud of her; several persons had remarked in his
hearing that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was a
peculiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercurrent of
excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in it; but it
might pass for a sign of happiness.

"You look very well, my dear," said aunt Pullet, shaking her head
sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. "I niver thought your girl 'ud
be so good-looking, Bessy. But you must wear pink, my dear; that blue
thing as your aunt Glegg gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane
never _was_ tasty. Why don't you wear that gown o' mine?"

"It is so pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it's too showy for
me,--at least for my other clothes, that I must wear with it.

"To be sure, it 'ud be unbecoming if it wasn't well known you've got
them belonging to you as can afford to give you such things when
they've done with 'em themselves. It stands to reason I must give my
own niece clothes now and then,--such things as _I_ buy every year,
and never wear anything out. And as for Lucy, there's no giving to
her, for she's got everything o' the choicest; sister Deane may well
hold her head up,--though she looks dreadful yallow, poor thing--I
doubt this liver complaint 'ull carry her off. That's what this new
vicar, this Dr. Kenn, said in the funeral sermon to-day."

"Ah, he's a wonderful preacher, by all account,--isn't he, Sophy?"
said Mrs. Tulliver.

"Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day," continued Mrs.
Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating manner, "as I don't say I
haven't got as good, but I must look out my best to match it."

"Miss Lucy's called the bell o' St. Ogg's, they say; that's a cur'ous
word," observed Mr. Pullet, on whom the mysteries of etymology
sometimes fell with an oppressive weight.

"Pooh!" said Mr. Tulliver, jealous for Maggie, "she's a small thing,
not much of a figure. But fine feathers make fine birds. I see nothing
to admire so much in those diminutive women; they look silly by the
side o' the men,--out o' proportion. When I chose my wife, I chose her
the right size,--neither too little nor too big."

The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled complacently.

"But the men aren't _all_ big," said uncle Pullet, not without some
self-reference; "a young fellow may be good-looking and yet not be a
six-foot, like Master Tom here.

"Ah, it's poor talking about littleness and bigness,--anybody may
think it's a mercy they're straight," said aunt Pullet. "There's that
mismade son o' Lawyer Wakem's, I saw him at church to-day. Dear, dear!
to think o' the property he's like to have; and they say he's very
queer and lonely, doesn't like much company. I shouldn't wonder if he
goes out of his mind; for we never come along the road but he's
a-scrambling out o' the trees and brambles at the Red Deeps."

This wide statement, by which Mrs. Pullet represented the fact that
she had twice seen Philip at the spot indicated, produced an effect on
Maggie which was all the stronger because Tom sate opposite her, and
she was intensely anxious to look indifferent. At Philip's name she
had blushed, and the blush deepened every instant from consciousness,
until the mention of the Red Deeps made her feel as if the whole
secret were betrayed, and she dared not even hold her tea-spoon lest
she should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands clasped under
the table, not daring to look round. Happily, her father was seated on
the same side with herself, beyond her uncle Pullet, and could not see
her face without stooping forward. Her mother's voice brought the
first relief, turning the conversation; for Mrs. Tulliver was always
alarmed when the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband's
presence. Gradually Maggie recovered composure enough to look up; her
eyes met Tom's, but he turned away his head immediately; and she went
to bed that night wondering if he had gathered any suspicion from her
confusion. Perhaps not; perhaps he would think it was only her alarm
at her aunt's mention of Wakem before her father; that was the
interpretation her mother had put in it. To her father, Wakem was like
a disfiguring disease, of which he was obliged to endure the
consciousness, but was exasperated to have the existence recognized by
others; and no amount of sensitiveness in her about her father could
be surprising, Maggie thought.

But Tom was too keen-sighted to rest satisfied with such an
interpretation; he had seen clearly enough that there was something
distinct from anxiety about her father in Maggie's excessive
confusion. In trying to recall all the details that could give shape
to his suspicions, he remembered only lately hearing his mother scold
Maggie for walking in the Red Deeps when the ground was wet, and
bringing home shoes clogged with red soil; still Tom, retaining all
his old repulsion for Philip's deformity, shrank from attributing to
his sister the probability of feeling more than a friendly interest in
such an unfortunate exception to the common run of men. Tom's was a
nature which had a sort of superstitious repugnance to everything
exceptional. A love for a deformed man would be odious in any woman,
in a sister intolerable. But if she had been carrying on any kind of
intercourse whatever with Philip, a stop must be put to it at once;
she was disobeying her father's strongest feelings and her brother's
express commands, besides compromising herself by secret meetings. He
left home the next morning in that watchful state of mind which turns
the most ordinary course of things into pregnant coincidences.

That afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Tom was standing on the
wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the probability of the good ship
Adelaide coming in, in a day or two, with results highly important to
both of them.

"Eh," said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields on the
other side of the river, "there goes that crooked young Wakem. I know
him or his shadder as far off as I can see 'em; I'm allays lighting on
him o' that side the river."

A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom's mind. "I must go,
Bob," he said; "I've something to attend to," hurrying off to the
warehouse, where he left notice for some one to take his place; he was
called away home on peremptory business.

The swiftest pace and the shortest road took him to the gate, and he
was pausing to open it deliberately, that he might walk into the house
with an appearance of perfect composure, when Maggie came out at the
front door in bonnet and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he
waited for her at the gate. She started violently when she saw him.

"Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything the matter?"
Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice.

"I'm come to walk with you to the Red Deeps, and meet Philip Wakem,"
said Tom, the central fold in his brow, which had become habitual with
him, deepening as he spoke.

Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means, then, Tom knew
everything. At last she said, "I'm not going," and turned round.

"Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where is my father?"

"Out on horseback."

"And my mother?"

"In the yard, I think, with the poultry."

"I can go in, then, without her seeing me?"

They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said to Maggie,
"Come in here."

She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.

"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between
you and Philip Wakem."

"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trembling.

"No," said Tom indignantly. "But he _shall_ know, if you attempt to
use deceit toward me any further."

"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into resentment at
hearing this word applied to her conduct.

"Tell me the whole truth, then."

"Perhaps you know it."

"Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly what has
happened, or my father shall know everything."

"I tell it for my father's sake, then."

"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you
have despised his strongest feelings."

"You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly.

"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.

"But I have nothing to say to you beyond this: tell me what has passed
between you and Philip Wakem. When did you first meet him in the Red
Deeps?"

"A year ago," said Maggie, quietly. Tom's severity gave her a certain
fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in abeyance. "You need
ask me no more questions. We have been friendly a year. We have met
and walked together often. He has lent me books."

"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown.

Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom's right
to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:

"No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved me. I didn't
think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old friend."

"And you _encouraged_ him?" said Tom, with an expression of disgust.

"I told him that I loved him too."

Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with
his hands in his pockets. At last he looked up and said coldly,--

"Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to take,--either
you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father's Bible, that you
will never have another meeting or speak another word in private with
Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and this
month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will
cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful
daughter, who throws away her own respectability by clandestine
meetings with the son of a man that has helped to ruin her father.
Choose!" Tom ended with cold decision, going up to the large Bible,
drawing it forward, and opening it at the fly-leaf, where the writing
was.

It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.

"Tom," she said, urged out of pride into pleading, "don't ask me that.
I will promise you to give up all intercourse with Philip, if you will
let me see him once, or even only write to him and explain
everything,--to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain to
my father. I feel something for Philip too. _He_ is not happy."

"I don't wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly
what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in."

"If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I
laid my hand on the Bible. I don't require that to bind me."

"Do what _I_ require," said Tom. "I can't trust you, Maggie. There is
no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and say, 'I
renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem from
this time forth.' Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on my
father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up
everything else for the sake of paying my father's debts, if you are
to bring madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and
hold up his head once more?"

"Oh, Tom, _will_ the debts be paid soon?" said Maggie, clasping her
hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness.

"If things turn out as I expect," said Tom. "But," he added, his voice
trembling with indignation, "while I have been contriving and working
that my father may have some peace of mind before he dies,--working
for the respectability of our family,--you have done all you can to
destroy both."

Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind
ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable,
and in her self-blame she justified her brother.

"Tom," she said in a low voice, "it was wrong of me; but I was so
lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are
wicked."

"Nonsense!" said Tom. "Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but
promise, in the words I told you."

"I _must_ speak to Philip once more."

"You will go with me now and speak to him."

"I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your
knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on
the Bible if you like."

"Say it, then."

Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the
promise. Tom closed the book, and said, "Now let us go."

Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in
anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the
galling words that would fall on him from Tom's lips; but she felt it
was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible
clutch on her conscience and her deepest dread; she writhed under the
demonstrable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and
yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its
incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation
diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish
repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in
the bitter severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a
son and a brother. Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own
motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was
quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he
would have had nothing to do with them.

Maggie's only hope was that something might, for the first time, have
prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay,--then she
might get Tom's permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double
violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment
of suspense, she thought; Philip always met her soon after she got
beyond them. But they passed across the more open green space, and
entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another turning, and they
came so close upon him that both Tom and Philip stopped suddenly
within a yard of each other. There was a moment's silence, in which
Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie's face. He saw an answer
there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the
large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an
immediate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble
Philip bodily, crushing him and trampling on him.

"Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?" Tom
said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Philip's eyes were turned
on him again.

"What do you mean?" answered Philip, haughtily.

"Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and I'll
tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young girl's
foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with you.
I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has
a good and honest name to support."

"I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. "I could never trifle
with anything that affected your sister's happiness. She is dearer to
me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever honor her; I
would give up my life to her."

"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend
that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet you here
week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions
of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when
neither her father nor your father would ever consent to a marriage
between you? And _you_,--_you_ to try and worm yourself into the
affections of a handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut
out from the world by her father's misfortunes! That's your crooked
notion of honor, is it? I call it base treachery; I call it taking
advantage of circumstances to win what's too good for you,--what you'd
never get by fair means."

"It is manly of you to talk in this way to _me_," said Philip,
bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. "Giants have an
immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable
even of understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for
her that I could even desire to be at friendship with _you_."

"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Tom, with
scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand
_me_,--that I shall take care of _my_ sister, and that if you dare to
make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to
keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that
ought to have put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you.
I'll thrash you; I'll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn't laugh
at the idea of _your_ turning lover to a fine girl?"

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a
convulsed voice.

"Stay, Maggie!" said Philip, making a strong effort to speak. Then
looking at Tom, "You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that
she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally
seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken.
Let your sister speak. If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall
abide by her wishes to the slightest word."

"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't bear it; I have promised,
I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without
my brother's knowledge."

"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change; but I wish you to hold
yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek
for anything but good to what belongs to you."

"Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's, "you can
talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek
her good before?"

"I did,--at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for
life,--who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a
coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her
affections on."

"Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I'll tell
you what is my way. I'll save her from disobeying and disgracing her
father; I'll save her from throwing herself away on you,--from making
herself a laughing-stock,--from being flouted by a man like _your_
father, because she's not good enough for his son. You know well
enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her.
I'm not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.
Come away, Maggie."

He seized Maggie's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left
hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then
hurried away.

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still
holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the
scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand
away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.

"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your
will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I
detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have
been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure
you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough
to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your
own petty aims."

"Certainly," said Tom, coolly. "I don't see that your conduct is
better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem's
conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known?
Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I've
succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one
else?"

"I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with vehemence: "I
know I've been wrong,--often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I
have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be
the better for, if you had them. If _you_ were in fault ever, if you
had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it
brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you
have always enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel
to me; even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than
any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without
forgiving me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own
imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not
fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee.
You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are
great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of
feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!"

"Well," said Tom, with cold scorn, "if your feelings are so much
better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by
conduct that's likely to disgrace us all,--than by ridiculous flights
first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown
your love, that you talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying
and deceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection."

"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in
the world."

"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."

"So I _will_ submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be right. I will
submit even to what is unreasonable from my father, but I will not
submit to it from you. You boast of your virtues as if they purchased
you a right to be cruel and unmanly, as you've been to-day. Don't
suppose I would give up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The
deformity you insult would make me cling to him and care for him the
more."

"Very well; that is your view of things." said Tom, more coldly than
ever; "you need say no more to show me what a wide distance there is
between us. Let us remember that in future, and be silent."

Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfill an appointment with his uncle
Deane, and receive directions about a journey on which he was to set
out the next morning.

Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant
remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred, in bitter
tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by,
came the recollection of that quiet time before the pleasure which had
ended in to-day's misery had perturbed the clearness and simplicity of
her life. She used to think in that time that she had made great
conquests, and won a lasting stand on serene heights above worldly
temptations and conflict. And here she was down again in the thick of
a hot strife with her own and others' passions. Life was not so short,
then, and perfect rest was not so near as she had dreamed when she was
two years younger. There was more struggle for her, and perhaps more
falling. If she had felt that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had
been entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward
harmony; but now her penitence and submission were constantly
obstructed by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise
than as a just indignation. Her heart bled for Philip; she went on
recalling the insults that had been flung at him with so vivid a
conception of what he had felt under them, that it was almost like a
sharp bodily pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and
tighten her fingers on her palm.

And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain
dim background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely
it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was
welcome at any cost.

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

completion: Maggie has always feared meeting Tom or her father while walking with Philip, but it has never occurred to her to worry about aunt Pullet. Nevertheless, it is aunt Pullet who gives her away by remarking one day that she frequently sees Philip Wakem at the Red Deeps. She means only that she has twice seen Philip there, but Maggie blushes and Tom notices it. The next afternoon while Tom is talking to Bob Jakin on the wharf, Bob points out Philip on the far bank. Tom hurries home and meets Maggie coming out the gate. When she asks why he is home, Tom says he has come to meet Philip with her. She says she will not go, but Tom insists that she will. He threatens to tell their father unless she tell "everything that has passed" between her and Philip. She says she will tell it for her father's sake. Tom is scornful at that, but he forces out of her the fact that she and Philip have declared their love. Tom tells her she must either swear on the Bible not to meet Philip again or he will tell their father everything. He asks why he should work to pay their father's debts if she is to "bring madness and vexation on him" just when he "might hold up his head once more." Maggie feels sudden joy at this hint that the debts are to be paid; she begins to blame herself and tells Tom she was lonely and sorry for Philip and that she thinks "enmity and hatred are wicked." She says she must see Philip once more, and Tom says he will go with her after she swears her oath. Maggie hopes Philip will not be there but he is. Tom accuses him of taking advantage of "a young girl's foolishness." Philip retorts that he honors her more than Tom does and says Tom is incapable of understanding what he feels. Tom replies that he would be sorry to understand, but only wishes to be understood that he will thrash Philip if he comes near Maggie again. Philip says that if Maggie wishes to give him up, he will abide by that. Maggie says that she must for her father's sake. Tom snatches Maggie away. When they have parted, Maggie tells Tom she detests his "insulting unmanly allusions" to Philip's deformity; she says his mind is not large enough to see anything better than his own conduct. She refuses to defend herself but says that if Tom were ever at fault, she would be sorry for him, whereas he has no pity. She says she would not give up Philip in obedience to him but only for her father. Tom returns to St. Ogg's, and Maggie goes to her room and cries. She sees now that she is not "above worldly temptations," and she is pained for the insults Philip had to bear. Yet, she feels "a certain dim background of relief" which she thinks is due to "deliverance from concealment."


prompt:
Chapter: The Hard-Won Triumph

Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in
all the year,--the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep
and daisied,--Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier than usual in the
evening, and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old
deep-rooted affection at the respectable red brick house, which always
seemed cheerful and inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the
hearts as sad as they might inside. There is a very pleasant light in
Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows; that fold in
his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply
a strength of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the
eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression. His firm step becomes
quicker, and the corners of his mouth rebel against the compression
which is meant to forbid a smile.

The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge just then,
and the group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,--Mr. Tulliver
in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating with a worn
look, fixed chiefly on Maggie, who was bending over her sewing while
her mother was making the tea.

They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot.

"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're a bit earlier than
usual."

"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well,
mother!"

Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humor
with him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him and Maggie in
all the three weeks; but his usual incommunicativeness at home
prevented this from being noticeable to their parents.

"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you know exactly
how much money there is in the tin box?"

"Only a hundred and ninety-three pound," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've
brought less o' late; but young fellows like to have their own way
with their money. Though I didn't do as I liked before _I_ was of
age." He spoke with rather timid discontent.

"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Tom. "I wish you
would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you have
perhaps made a mistake."

"How should I make a mistake?" said his father, sharply. "I've counted
it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you won't believe me."

It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy life, to
fetch the tin box and count the money.

"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw her moving
when his father was gone upstairs.

"And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "because somebody must
take away the things."

"Just as she likes," said Tom indifferently.

That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped with the
sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their father the debts
could be paid; and Tom would have let her be absent when that news was
told! But she carried away the tray and came back immediately. The
feeling of injury on her own behalf could not predominate at that
moment.

Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when the tin box
was set down and opened, and the red evening light falling on them
made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom of the dark-eyed father and the
suppressed joy in the face of the fair-complexioned son. The mother
and Maggie sat at the other end of the table, the one in blank
patience, the other in palpitating expectation.

Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the table,
and then said, glancing sharply at Tom:

"There now! you see I was right enough."

He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.

"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine while before
_I_ can save that. Losing that forty-two pound wi' the corn was a sore
job. This world's been too many for me. It's took four year to lay
_this_ by; it's much if I'm above ground for another four year. I must
trusten to you to pay 'em," he went on, with a trembling voice, "if
you keep i' the same mind now you're coming o' age. But you're like
enough to bury me first."

He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for some assurance.

"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though there
was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you will live to see the
debts all paid. You shall pay them with your own hand."

His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or resolution. A
slight electric shock seemed to pass through Mr. Tulliver, and he kept
his eyes fixed on Tom with a look of eager inquiry, while Maggie,
unable to restrain herself, rushed to her father's side and knelt down
by him. Tom was silent a little while before he went on.

"A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money to trade
with, and that has answered. I have three hundred and twenty pounds in
the bank."

His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last words were
uttered, and she said, half crying:

"Oh, my boy, I knew you'd make iverything right again, when you got a
man."

But his father was silent; the flood of emotion hemmed in all power of
speech. Both Tom and Maggie were struck with fear lest the shock of
joy might even be fatal. But the blessed relief of tears came. The
broad chest heaved, the muscles of the face gave way, and the
gray-haired man burst into loud sobs. The fit of weeping gradually
subsided, and he sat quiet, recovering the regularity of his
breathing. At last he looked up at his wife and said, in a gentle
tone:

"Bessy, you must come and kiss me now--the lad has made you amends.
You'll see a bit o' comfort again, belike."

When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a minute, his
thoughts went back to the money.

"I wish you'd brought me the money to look at, Tom," he said,
fingering the sovereigns on the table; "I should ha' felt surer."

"You shall see it to-morrow, father," said Tom. "My uncle Deane has
appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the Golden Lion, and he
has ordered a dinner for them at two o'clock. My uncle Glegg and he
will both be there. It was advertised in the 'Messenger' on Saturday."

"Then Wakem knows on't!" said Mr. Tulliver, his eye kindling with
triumphant fire. "Ah!" he went on, with a long-drawn guttural
enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the only luxury he had left
himself, and tapping it with something of his old air of defiance.
"I'll get from under _his_ thumb now, though I _must_ leave the old
mill. I thought I could ha' held out to die here--but I can't----we've
got a glass o' nothing in the house, have we, Bessy?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of keys,
"there's some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was ill."

"Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak."

"Tom, my lad," he said, in a stronger voice, when he had taken some
brandy-and-water, "you shall make a speech to 'em. I'll tell 'em it's
you as got the best part o' the money. They'll see I'm honest at last,
and ha' got an honest son. Ah! Wakem 'ud be fine and glad to have a
son like mine,--a fine straight fellow,--i'stead o' that poor crooked
creatur! You'll prosper i' the world, my lad; you'll maybe see the day
when Wakem and his son 'ull be a round or two below you. You'll like
enough be ta'en into partnership, as your uncle Deane was before
you,--you're in the right way for't; and then there's nothing to
hinder your getting rich. And if ever you're rich enough--mind
this--try and get th' old mill again."

Mr. Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind, which had so
long been the home of nothing but bitter discontent and foreboding,
suddenly filled, by the magic of joy, with visions of good fortune.
But some subtle influence prevented him from foreseeing the good
fortune as happening to himself.

"Shake hands wi' me, my lad," he said, suddenly putting out his hand.
"It's a great thing when a man can be proud as he's got a good son.
I've had _that_ luck."

Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and
Maggie couldn't help forgetting her own grievances. Tom _was_ good;
and in the sweet humility that springs in us all in moments of true
admiration and gratitude, she felt that the faults he had to pardon in
her had never been redeemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy
this evening that, for the first time, she seemed to be thrown into
the background in her father's mind.

There was much more talk before bedtime. Mr. Tulliver naturally wanted
to hear all the particulars of Tom's trading adventures, and he
listened with growing excitement and delight. He was curious to know
what had been said on every occasion; if possible, what had been
thought; and Bob Jakin's part in the business threw him into peculiar
outbursts of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that
remarkable packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come
under Mr. Tulliver's knowledge, was recalled with that sense of
astonishing promise it displayed, which is observable in all
reminiscences of the childhood of great men.

It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep under
the vague but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem, which would
otherwise have been the channel his joy would have rushed into with
dangerous force. Even as it was, that feeling from time to time gave
threats of its ultimate mastery, in sudden bursts of irrelevant
exclamation.

It was long before Mr. Tulliver got to sleep that night; and the
sleep, when it came, was filled with vivid dreams. At half-past five
o'clock in the morning, when Mrs. Tulliver was already rising, he
alarmed her by starting up with a sort of smothered shout, and looking
round in a bewildered way at the walls of the bedroom.

"What's the matter, Mr. Tulliver?" said his wife. He looked at her,
still with a puzzled expression, and said at last:

"Ah!--I was dreaming--did I make a noise?--I thought I'd got hold of
him."

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

completion: It is three weeks later when Tom comes home early, in a good humor, and asks his father to count their money. Mr. Tulliver is sure of the amount, but he does as his son wishes. The amount comes out as he expected, with three hundred pounds still needed for his debts. Mr. Tulliver fears he will not live that long. Tom tells his father that the debts can be paid with his own hand, for he has saved over three hundred pounds from his own trade. Tulliver is struck silent and finally breaks into tears. He is triumphant that Wakem will know of it, for Tom has arranged a dinner to pay the creditors, and it has been advertised in the paper. They drink to this success, and Tulliver insists on hearing all the details over and over. He cannot sleep well that night, and early in the morning he wakens, dreaming that he has Wakem in his grasp.


prompt:
Chapter: A Day of Reckoning

Mr. Tulliver was an essentially sober man,--able to take his glass and
not averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds of moderation. He had
naturally an active Hotspur temperament, which did not crave liquid
fire to set it aglow; his impetuosity was usually equal to an exciting
occasion without any such reinforcements; and his desire for the
brandy-and-water implied that the too sudden joy had fallen with a
dangerous shock on a frame depressed by four years of gloom and
unaccustomed hard fare. But that first doubtful tottering moment
passed, he seemed to gather strength with his gathering excitement;
and the next day, when he was seated at table with his creditors, his
eye kindling and his cheek flushed with the consciousness that he was
about to make an honorable figure once more, he looked more like the
proud, confident, warm-hearted, and warm-tempered Tulliver of old
times than might have seemed possible to any one who had met him a
week before, riding along as had been his wont for the last four years
since the sense of failure and debt had been upon him,--with his head
hanging down, casting brief, unwilling looks on those who forced
themselves on his notice. He made his speech, asserting his honest
principles with his old confident eagerness, alluding to the rascals
and the luck that had been against him, but that he had triumphed
over, to some extent, by hard efforts and the aid of a good son; and
winding up with the story of how Tom had got the best part of the
needful money. But the streak of irritation and hostile triumph seemed
to melt for a little while into purer fatherly pride and pleasure,
when, Tom's health having been proposed, and uncle Deane having taken
occasion to say a few words of eulogy on his general character and
conduct, Tom himself got up and made the single speech of his life. It
could hardly have been briefer. He thanked the gentlemen for the honor
they had done him. He was glad that he had been able to help his
father in proving his integrity and regaining his honest name; and,
for his own part, he hoped he should never undo that work and disgrace
that name. But the applause that followed was so great, and Tom looked
so gentlemanly as well as tall and straight, that Mr. Tulliver
remarked, in an explanatory manner, to his friends on his right and
left, that he had spent a deal of money on his son's education.

The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o'clock. Tom remained
in St. Ogg's to attend to some business, and Mr. Tulliver mounted his
horse to go home, and describe the memorable things that had been said
and done, to "poor Bessy and the little wench." The air of excitement
that hung about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any stimulus
but the potent wine of triumphant joy. He did not choose any back
street to-day, but rode slowly, with uplifted head and free glances,
along the principal street all the way to the bridge.

Why did he not happen to meet Wakem? The want of that coincidence
vexed him, and set his mind at work in an irritating way. Perhaps
Wakem was gone out of town to-day on purpose to avoid seeing or
hearing anything of an honorable action which might well cause him
some unpleasant twinges. If Wakem were to meet him then, Mr. Tulliver
would look straight at him, and the rascal would perhaps be forsaken a
little by his cool, domineering impudence. He would know by and by
that an honest man was not going to serve _him_ any longer, and lend
his honesty to fill a pocket already over-full of dishonest gains.
Perhaps the luck was beginning to turn; perhaps the Devil didn't
always hold the best cards in this world.

Simmering in this way, Mr. Tulliver approached the yardgates of
Dorlcote Mill, near enough to see a well-known figure coming out of
them on a fine black horse. They met about fifty yards from the gates,
between the great chestnuts and elms and the high bank.

"Tulliver," said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than usual,
"what a fool's trick you did,--spreading those hard lumps on that Far
Close! I told you how it would be; but you men never learn to farm
with any method."

"Oh!" said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; "get somebody else to farm
for you, then, as'll ask _you_ to teach him."

"You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, really believing that
this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face and sparkling eyes.

"No, I've not been drinking," said Tulliver; "I want no drinking to
help me make up my mind as I'll serve no longer under a scoundrel."

"Very well! you may leave my premises to-morrow, then; hold your
insolent tongue and let me pass." (Tulliver was backing his horse
across the road to hem Wakem in.)

"No, I _sha'n't_ let you pass," said Tulliver, getting fiercer. "I
shall tell you what I think of you first. You're too big a raskill to
get hanged--you're----"

"Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I'll ride over you."

Mr. Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made a rush
forward; and Wakem's horse, rearing and staggering backward, threw his
rider from the saddle and sent him sideways on the ground. Wakem had
had the presence of mind to loose the bridle at once, and as the horse
only staggered a few paces and then stood still, he might have risen
and remounted without more inconvenience than a bruise and a shake.
But before he could rise, Tulliver was off his horse too. The sight of
the long-hated predominant man down, and in his power, threw him into
a frenzy of triumphant vengeance, which seemed to give him
preternatural agility and strength. He rushed on Wakem, who was in the
act of trying to recover his feet, grasped him by the left arm so as
to press Wakem's whole weight on the right arm, which rested on the
ground, and flogged him fiercely across the back with his riding-whip.
Wakem shouted for help, but no help came, until a woman's scream was
heard, and the cry of "Father, father!"

Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulliver's arm; for
the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own arm was relaxed.

"Get away with you--go!" said Tulliver, angrily. But it was not to
Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose, and, as he turned his
head, saw that Tulliver's arms were being held by a girl, rather by
the fear of hurting the girl that clung to him with all her young
might.

"Oh, Luke--mother--come and help Mr. Wakem!" Maggie cried, as she
heard the longed-for footsteps.

"Help me on to that low horse," said Wakem to Luke, "then I shall
perhaps manage; though--confound it--I think this arm is sprained."

With some difficulty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver's horse. Then he
turned toward the miller and said, with white rage, "You'll suffer for
this, sir. Your daughter is a witness that you've assaulted me."

"I don't care," said Mr. Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice; "go and
show your back, and tell 'em I thrashed you. Tell 'em I've made things
a bit more even i' the world."

"Ride my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luke. "By the Tofton
Ferry, not through the town."

"Father, come in!" said Maggie, imploringly. Then, seeing that Wakem
had ridden off, and that no further violence was possible, she
slackened her hold and burst into hysteric sobs, while poor Mrs.
Tulliver stood by in silence, quivering with fear. But Maggie became
conscious that as she was slackening her hold her father was beginning
to grasp her and lean on her. The surprise checked her sobs.

"I feel ill--faintish," he said. "Help me in, Bessy--I'm giddy--I've a
pain i' the head."

He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter and tottered
into his arm-chair. The almost purple flush had given way to paleness,
and his hand was cold.

"Hadn't we better send for the doctor?" said Mrs. Tulliver.

He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her; but presently,
when she said to Maggie, "Go and seek for somebody to fetch the
doctor," he looked up at her with full comprehension, and said,
"Doctor? No--no doctor. It's my head, that's all. Help me to bed."

Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a beginning of
better times! But mingled seed must bear a mingled crop.

In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came home. Bob
Jakin was with him, come to congratulate "the old master," not without
some excusable pride that he had had his share in bringing about Mr.
Tom's good luck; and Tom had thought his father would like nothing
better, as a finish to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom
could only spend the evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleasant
consequences that must follow on this mad outbreak of his father's
long-smothered hate. After the painful news had been told, he sat in
silence; he had not spirit or inclination to tell his mother and
sister anything about the dinner; they hardly cared to ask it.
Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so
curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow
coming close upon it. Tom was dejected by the thought that his
exemplary effort must always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others;
Maggie was living through, over and over again, the agony of the
moment in which she had rushed to throw herself on her father's arm,
with a vague, shuddering foreboding of wretched scenes to come. Not
one of the three felt any particular alarm about Mr. Tulliver's
health; the symptoms did not recall his former dangerous attack, and
it seemed only a necessary consequence that his violent passion and
effort of strength, after many hours of unusual excitement, should
have made him feel ill. Rest would probably cure him.

Tom, tired out by his active day, fell asleep soon, and slept soundly;
it seemed to him as if he had only just come to bed, when he waked to
see his mother standing by him in the gray light of early morning.

"My boy, you must get up this minute; I've sent for the doctor, and
your father wants you and Maggie to come to him."

"Is he worse, mother?"

"He's been very ill all night with his head, but he doesn't say it's
worse; he only said suddenly, 'Bessy, fetch the boy and girl. Tell 'em
to make haste.'"

Maggie and Tom threw on their clothes hastily in the chill gray light,
and reached their father's room almost at the same moment. He was
watching for them with an expression of pain on his brow, but with
sharpened, anxious consciousness in his eyes. Mrs. Tulliver stood at
the foot of the bed, frightened and trembling, looking worn and aged
from disturbed rest. Maggie was at the bedside first, but her father's
glance was toward Tom, who came and stood next to her.

"Tom, my lad, it's come upon me as I sha'n't get up again. This
world's been too many for me, my lad, but you've done what you could
to make things a bit even. Shake hands wi' me again, my lad, before I
go away from you."

The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other an instant.
Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly,--

"Have you any wish, father--that I can fulfil, when----"

"Ay, my lad--you'll try and get the old mill back."

"Yes, father."

"And there's your mother--you'll try and make her amends, all you can,
for my bad luck--and there's the little wench----"

The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more eager look,
while she, with a bursting heart, sank on her knees, to be closer to
the dear, time-worn face which had been present with her through long
years, as the sign of her deepest love and hardest trial.

"You must take care of her, Tom--don't you fret, my wench--there'll
come somebody as'll love you and take your part--and you must be good
to her, my lad. I was good to _my_ sister. Kiss me, Maggie.--Come,
Bessy.--You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother
and me can lie together."

He looked away from them all when he had said this, and lay silent for
some minutes, while they stood watching him, not daring to move. The
morning light was growing clearer for them, and they could see the
heaviness gathering in his face, and the dulness in his eyes. But at
last he looked toward Tom and said,--

"I had my turn--I beat him. That was nothing but fair. I never wanted
anything but what was fair."

"But, father, dear father," said Maggie, an unspeakable anxiety
predominating over her grief, "you forgive him--you forgive every one
now?"

He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said,--

"No, my wench. I don't forgive him. What's forgiving to do? I can't
love a raskill----"

His voice had become thicker; but he wanted to say more, and moved his
lips again and again, struggling in vain to speak. At length the words
forced their way.

"Does God forgive raskills?--but if He does, He won't be hard wi' me."

His hands moved uneasily, as if he wanted them to remove some
obstruction that weighed upon him. Two or three times there fell from
him some broken words,--

"This world's--too many--honest man--puzzling----"

Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had ceased to discern;
and then came the final silence.

But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved, the loud, hard
breathing continued, getting gradually slower, as the cold dews
gathered on the brow.

At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
soul had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this
world.

Help was come now; Luke and his wife were there, and Mr. Turnbull had
arrived, too late for everything but to say, "This is death."

Tom and Maggie went downstairs together into the room where their
father's place was empty. Their eyes turned to the same spot, and
Maggie spoke,--

"Tom, forgive me--let us always love each other"; and they clung and
wept together.

Book VI

_The Great Temptation_

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

completion: At dinner with his creditors, Tulliver looks like his old self. He makes a long speech about his honesty and his admiration for his son. Tom makes a brief speech, giving thanks for the honor done him, and is well received. Tulliver rides home on the main street, "with uplifted head and free glances," wishing he would meet Wakem. They do meet, at the gate to the mill yard. Wakem makes a harsh comment on Tulliver's farming. Tulliver says angrily that he will "serve no longer under a scoundrel," and when Wakem tries to pass, Tulliver knocks him from his horse. He is whipping Wakem when Maggie comes to restrain him. Luke helps Wakem to his horse, while Maggie helps her father to his bed, for he is faint and pale. A half-hour later Tom comes home. He is dejected that his "exemplary effort" is confounded by this occurrence. No one is worried about Mr. Tulliver, but in the early morning Tom and Maggie are wakened by their mother: the doctor has been sent for, and their father has asked for them. When they come in, Mr. Tulliver asks Tom to try to get the mill back and charges him to care for his mother and be good to Maggie, as he had been good to his sister. At last he says, with difficulty, that he has had his turn and beat Wakem. Maggie begs him to forgive Wakem, but Tulliver says he cannot "love a raskill." He subsides into mutterings, and the doctor arrives an hour later only to pronounce him dead. Tom and Maggie cling together and promise to love each other.


prompt:
Chapter: A Duet in Paradise

The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano, and the
pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of
the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat little lady in mourning, whose
light-brown ringlets are falling over the colored embroidery with
which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine
young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in
the extremely abbreviated face of the "King Charles" lying on the
young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond
ring, attar of roses, and air of _nonchalant_ leisure, at twelve
o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the
largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St. Ogg's. There is
an apparent triviality in the action with the scissors, but your
discernment perceives at once that there is a design in it which makes
it eminently worthy of a large-headed, long-limbed young man; for you
see that Lucy wants the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she
may be, to shake her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile
playfully down on the face that is so very nearly on a level with her
knee, and holding out her little shell-pink palm, to say,--

"My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of
persecuting my poor Minny."

The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems,
and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly.

"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them
off for me."

"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy, roguishly.

"Oh, but that's my left hand; I'm not left-handed."

Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from
tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen for a repetition _da
capo_. Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that
he may get them into his possession again.

"No, no," said Lucy, sticking them in her band, "you shall not have my
scissors again,--you have strained them already. Now don't set Minny
growling again. Sit up and behave properly, and then I will tell you
some news."

"What is that?" said Stephen, throwing himself back and hanging his
right arm over the corner of his chair. He might have been sitting for
his portrait, which would have represented a rather striking young man
of five-and-twenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair,
standing erect, with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of
corn, and a half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his
well-marked horizontal eyebrows. "Is it very important news?"

"Yes, very. Guess."

"You are going to change Minny's diet, and give him three ratafias
soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily?"

"Quite wrong."

"Well, then, Dr. Kenn has been preaching against buckram, and you
ladies have all been sending him a roundrobin, saying, 'This is a hard
doctrine; who can bear it?'"

"For shame!" said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth gravely. "It is
rather dull of you not to guess my news, because it is about something
I mentioned to you not very long ago."

"But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago. Does your
feminine tyranny require that when you say the thing you mean is one
of several things, I should know it immediately by that mark?"

"Yes, I know you think I am silly."

"I think you are perfectly charming."

"And my silliness is part of my charm?"

"I didn't say _that_."

"But I know you like women to be rather insipid. Philip Wakem betrayed
you; he said so one day when you were not here."

"Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point; he makes it quite a personal
matter. I think he must be love-sick for some unknown lady,--some
exalted Beatrice whom he met abroad."

"By the by," said Lucy, pausing in her work, "it has just occurred to
me that I never found out whether my cousin Maggie will object to see
Philip, as her brother does. Tom will not enter a room where Philip
is, if he knows it; perhaps Maggie may be the same, and then we
sha'n't be able to sing our glees, shall we?"

"What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?" said Stephen, with a
look of slight annoyance.

"Yes; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She's going to leave
her situation, where she has been nearly two years, poor thing,--ever
since her father's death; and she will stay with me a month or
two,--many months, I hope."

"And am I bound to be pleased at that news?"

"Oh no, not at all," said Lucy, with a little air of pique. "_I_ am
pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why _you_ should be
pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so well as my cousin
Maggie."

"And you will be inseparable I suppose, when she comes. There will be
no possibility of a _tete-a-tete_ with you any more, unless you can
find an admirer for her, who will pair off with her occasionally. What
is the ground of dislike to Philip? He might have been a resource."

"It is a family quarrel with Philip's father. There were very painful
circumstances, I believe. I never quite understood them, or knew them
all. My uncle Tulliver was unfortunate and lost all his property, and
I think he considered Mr. Wakem was somehow the cause of it. Mr. Wakem
bought Dorlcote Mill, my uncle's old place, where he always lived. You
must remember my uncle Tulliver, don't you?"

"No," said Stephen, with rather supercilious indifference. "I've
always known the name, and I dare say I knew the man by sight, apart
from his name. I know half the names and faces in the neighborhood in
that detached, disjointed way."

"He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I was a little girl
and used to go to see my cousins, he often frightened me by talking as
if he were angry. Papa told me there was a dreadful quarrel, the very
day before my uncle's death, between him and Mr. Wakem, but it was
hushed up. That was when you were in London. Papa says my uncle was
quite mistaken in many ways; his mind had become embittered. But Tom
and Maggie must naturally feel it very painful to be reminded of these
things. They have had so much, so very much trouble. Maggie was at
school with me six years ago, when she was fetched away because of her
father's misfortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure since, I
think. She has been in a dreary situation in a school since uncle's
death, because she is determined to be independent, and not live with
aunt Pullet; and I could hardly wish her to come to me then, because
dear mamma was ill, and everything was so sad. That is why I want her
to come to me now, and have a long, long holiday."

"Very sweet and angelic of you," said Stephen, looking at her with an
admiring smile; "and all the more so if she has the conversational
qualities of her mother."

"Poor aunty! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very valuable to
_me_, I know. She manages the house beautifully,--much better than any
stranger would,--and she was a great comfort to me in mamma's
illness."

"Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that she should
be represented by her brandy-cherries and cream-cakes. I think with a
shudder that her daughter will always be present in person, and have
no agreeable proxies of that kind,--a fat, blond girl, with round blue
eyes, who will stare at us silently."

"Oh yes!" exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clapping her hands,
"that is just my cousin Maggie. You must have seen her!"

"No, indeed; I'm only guessing what Mrs. Tulliver's daughter must be;
and then if she is to banish Philip, our only apology for a tenor,
that will be an additional bore."

"But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to call on Philip
and tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He is quite aware of Tom's
feeling, and always keeps out of his way; so he will understand, if
you tell him, that I asked you to warn him not to come until I write
to ask him."

"I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take; Phil is so
sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten him off coming at
all, and we had hard work to get him. I can never induce him to come
to the park; he doesn't like my sisters, I think. It is only your
faery touch that can lay his ruffled feathers."

Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying toward the table,
and touched it lightly with his lips. Little Lucy felt very proud and
happy. She and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the
most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of
passion,--when each is sure of the other's love, but no formal
declaration has been made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the
most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and
delicious as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an engagement
wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gathered
and presented in a large bouquet.

"But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on Maggie's
appearance and manners," said the cunning Lucy, moving to reach her
desk, "because she might have been like her brother, you know; and Tom
has not round eyes; and he is as far as possible from staring at
people."

"Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as
Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think."

"I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo; and papa is very
fond of him: he says Tom has excellent principles. It was through him
that his father was able to pay all his debts before he died."

"Oh, ah; I've heard about that. I heard your father and mine talking
about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of their
interminable discussions about business. They think of doing something
for young Tulliver; he saved them from a considerable loss by riding
home in some marvellous way, like Turpin, to bring them news about the
stoppage of a bank, or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy
at the time."

Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, humming in
falsetto, "Graceful Consort," as he turned over the volume of "The
Creation," which stood open on the desk.

"Come and sing this," he said, when he saw Lucy rising.

"What, 'Graceful Consort'? I don't think it suits your voice."

"Never mind; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip will have it,
is the grand element of good singing. I notice men with indifferent
voices are usually of that opinion."

"Philip burst into one of his invectives against 'The Creation' the
other day," said Lucy, seating herself at the piano. "He says it has a
sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe in it, as if
it were written for the birthday _fete_ of a German Grand-Duke."

"Oh, pooh! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and
Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,--the recitative, for the sake of
the moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,--'And from obedience
grows my pride and happiness.'"

"Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the _tempo_, as you
will," said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.

Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in
which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that
springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the
right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the
perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted
loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate
demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not
care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no embarrassing
dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. In the
provinces, too, where music was so scarce in that remote time, how
could the musical people avoid falling in love with each other? Even
political principle must have been in danger of relaxation under such
circumstances; and the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have
been tempted to fraternize in a demoralizing way with a reforming
violoncello. In that case, the linnet-throated soprano and the
full-toned bass singing,--

  "With thee delight is ever new,
  With thee is life incessant bliss,"

believed what they sang all the more _because_ they sang it.

"Now for Raphael's great song," said Lucy, when they had finished the
duet. "You do the 'heavy beasts' to perfection."

"That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his watch. "By
Jove, it's nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing this."

Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes representing the
tread of the heavy beasts; but when a singer has an audience of two,
there is room for divided sentiments. Minny's mistress was charmed;
but Minny, who had intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as
soon as the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste
that he leaped out and scampered under the remotest _chiffonnier_, as
the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of
doom.

"Adieu, 'graceful consort,'" said Stephen, buttoning his coat across
when he had done singing, and smiling down from his tall height, with
the air of rather a patronizing lover, at the little lady on the
music-stool. "My bliss is not incessant, for I must gallop home. I
promised to be there at lunch."

"You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no
consequence; I have said everything in my note."

"You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?"

"Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Tom will
dine with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for
the first time. It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about
it."

"But I may come the next day?"

"Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie; though you can
hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well."

"Good-bye, then." And there was that slight pressure of the hands, and
momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady
with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside
immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk
up and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her
embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this
was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an
indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she
just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The
desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright during a few
hours of conversation may be construed as lying within the bounds of a
laudable benevolent consideration for others. And Lucy had so much of
this benevolence in her nature that I am inclined to think her small
egoisms were impregnated with it, just as there are people not
altogether unknown to you whose small benevolences have a predominant
and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and
down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the
sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her
small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny
benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity
are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is
because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle
affections and good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful
days. Even now, her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which
makes two currents of feeling or imagination seem simultaneous, is
glancing continually from Stephen to the preparations she has only
half finished in Maggie's room. Cousin Maggie should be treated as
well as the grandest lady-visitor,--nay, better, for she should have
Lucy's best prints and drawings in her bedroom, and the very finest
bouquet of spring flowers on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that,
she was so found of pretty things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver,
that no one made any account of, she was to be surprised with the
present of a cap of superlative quality, and to have her health drunk
in a gratifying manner, for which Lucy was going to lay a plot with
her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time to indulge in long
reveries about her own happy love-affairs. With this thought she
walked toward the door, but paused there.

"What's the matter, then, Minny?" she said, stooping in answer to some
whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head
against her pink cheek. "Did you think I was going without you? Come,
then, let us go and see Sinbad."

Sinbad was Lucy's chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own
hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding
dependent creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals
about the house, delighting in the little rippling sounds of her
canaries when their beaks were busy with fresh seed, and in the small
nibbling pleasures of certain animals which, lest she should appear
too trivial, I will here call "the more familiar rodents."

Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that this slim
maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be
likely to repent of marrying,--a woman who was loving and thoughtful
for other women, not giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on
their welcome defects, but with real care and vision for their
half-hidden pains and mortifications, with long ruminating enjoyment
of little pleasures prepared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his
admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her;
perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not
strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty;
well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A man likes his
wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and
Lucy had all these qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find
himself in love with her, and was conscious of excellent judgment in
preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the daughter of the county member,
although Lucy was only the daughter of his father's subordinate
partner; besides, he had had to defy and overcome a slight
unwillingness and disappointment in his father and sisters,--a
circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his
own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independence
enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed
by any indirect considerations. He meant to choose Lucy; she was a
little darling, and exactly the sort of woman he had always admired.

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

completion: Lucy Deane is being courted by Stephen Guest, son of the principal partner of Guest and Company. He is a handsome, apparently flippant young man. Lucy is telling him that she has important news. He guesses that it is about her dog's diet or Dr. Kenn "preaching against buckram"; but she informs him that her cousin Maggie is coming to stay with her. At the same time she worries aloud that Maggie will object to seeing Philip Wakem, who often comes to sing glees with Stephen and Lucy. Stephen is annoyed that Lucy is to have company, but he inquires about the ground of Maggie's dislike for Philip. Lucy tells him what little she knows of the old quarrel between Tulliver and Wakem. She says that Maggie has been "in a dreary situation in a school" since Mr. Tulliver's death. This is to be her first holiday. It will allow Maggie to be near her mother, who has been housekeeper for Lucy and Mr. Deane since the death of Mrs. Deane. Stephen expects that Maggie will be like her mother -- "a fat blonde girl, with round blue eyes, who will stare at us silently." Lucy says that that is Maggie exactly. Stephen goes to the piano and asks Lucy to sing with him. After several songs Stephen departs, leaving Lucy with "an inclination to walk up and down the room." She sees to the preparation of Maggie's room, and half forgets "her own happy love-affairs." Stephen Guest is of the opinion that this is the sort of woman to marry -- a woman thoughtful of other women, pretty but "not to a maddening extent," gentle and "not stupid." He must overcome a slight unwillingness in his father and sisters, but he means to do so.