prompt:
Chapter: The Last Conflict

In the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting in her
lonely room, battling with the old shadowy enemies that were forever
slain and rising again. It was past midnight, and the rain was beating
heavily against the window, driven with fitful force by the rushing,
loud-moaning wind. For the day after Lucy's visit there had been a
sudden change in the weather; the heat and drought had given way to
cold variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at intervals; and she had
been forbidden to risk the contemplated journey until the weather
should become more settled. In the counties higher up the Floss the
rains had been continuous, and the completion of the harvest had been
arrested. And now, for the last two days, the rains on this lower
course of the river had been incessant, so that the old men had shaken
their heads and talked of sixty years ago, when the same sort of
weather, happening about the equinox, brought on the great floods,
which swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great misery. But
the younger generation, who had seen several small floods, thought
lightly of these sombre recollections and forebodings; and Bob Jakin,
naturally prone to take a hopeful view of his own luck, laughed at his
mother when she regretted their having taken a house by the riverside,
observing that but for that they would have had no boats, which were
the most lucky of possessions in case of a flood that obliged them to
go to a distance for food.

But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their beds
now. There was hope that the rain would abate by the morrow;
threatenings of a worse kind, from sudden thaws after falls of snow,
had often passed off, in the experience of the younger ones; and at
the very worst, the banks would be sure to break lower down the river
when the tide came in with violence, and so the waters would be
carried off, without causing more than temporary inconvenience, and
losses that would be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would
relieve.

All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight; all except some
solitary watchers such as Maggie. She was seated in her little parlor
toward the river, with one candle, that left everything dim in the
room except a letter which lay before her on the table. That letter,
which had come to her to-day, was one of the causes that had kept her
up far on into the night, unconscious how the hours were going,
careless of seeking rest, with no image of rest coming across her
mind, except of that far, far off rest from which there would be no
more waking for her into this struggling earthly life.

Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been to the
Rectory for the last time. The heavy rain would have prevented her
from going since; but there was another reason. Dr. Kenn, at first
enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and
slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more
fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male
parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to
overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of
resistance. Dr. Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the
matter, was still inclined to persevere,--was still averse to give way
before a public sentiment that was odious and contemptible; but he was
finally wrought upon by the consideration of the peculiar
responsibility attached to his office, of avoiding the appearance of
evil,--an "appearance" that is always dependent on the average quality
of surrounding minds. Where these minds are low and gross, the area of
that "appearance" is proportionately widened. Perhaps he was in danger
of acting from obstinacy; perhaps it was his duty to succumb.
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the
most painful course; and to recede was always painful to Dr. Kenn. He
made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's
for a time; and he performed that difficult task with as much delicacy
as he could, only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to
countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself and his
parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a
clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical friend of
his, who might possibly take her into his own family as governess;
and, if not, would probably know of some other available position for
a young woman in whose welfare Dr. Kenn felt a strong interest.

Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip; she could say nothing but a
faint "Thank you, I shall be grateful"; and she walked back to her
lodgings, through the driving rain, with a new sense of desolation.
She must be a lonely wanderer; she must go out among fresh faces, that
would look at her wonderingly, because the days did not seem joyful to
her; she must begin a new life, in which she would have to rouse
herself to receive new impressions; and she was so unspeakably,
sickeningly weary! There was no home, no help for the erring; even
those who pitied were constrained to hardness. But ought she to
complain? Ought she to shrink in this way from the long penance of
life, which was all the possibility she had of lightening the load to
some other sufferers, and so changing that passionate error into a new
force of unselfish human love? All the next day she sat in her lonely
room, with a window darkened by the cloud and the driving rain,
thinking of that future, and wrestling for patience; for what repose
could poor Maggie ever win except by wrestling?

And on the third day--this day of which she had just sat out the
close--the letter had come which was lying on the table before her.

The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from Holland; he was at
Mudport again, unknown to any of his friends, and had written to her
from that place, enclosing the letter to a person whom he trusted in
St. Ogg's. From beginning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach;
an appeal against her useless sacrifice of him, of herself, against
that perverted notion of right which led her to crush all his hopes,
for the sake of a mere idea, and not any substantial good,--_his_
hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her with that single overpowering
passion, that worship, which a man never gives to a woman more than
once in his life.

"They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn. As if I should
believe that! Perhaps they have told you some such fables about me.
Perhaps they tell you I've been 'travelling.' My body has been dragged
about somewhere; but _I_ have never travelled from the hideous place
where you left me; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage
to find you gone.

"Maggie! whose pain can have been like mine? Whose injury is like
mine? Who besides me has met that long look of love that has burnt
itself into my soul, so that no other image can come there? Maggie,
call me back to you! Call me back to life and goodness! I am banished
from both now. I have no motives; I am indifferent to everything. Two
months have only deepened the certainty that I can never care for life
without you. Write me one word; say 'Come!' In two days I should be
with you. Maggie, have you forgotten what it was to be together,--to
be within reach of a look, to be within hearing of each other's
voice?"

When Maggie first read this letter she felt as if her real temptation
had only just begun. At the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we turn
with unworn courage from the warm light; but how, when we have trodden
far in the damp darkness, and have begun to be faint and weary; how,
if there is a sudden opening above us, and we are invited back again
to the life-nourishing day? The leap of natural longing from under the
pressure of pain is so strong, that all less immediate motives are
likely to be forgotten--till the pain has been escaped from.

For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain. For hours
every other thought that she strove to summon was thrust aside by the
image of Stephen waiting for the single word that would bring him to
her. She did not _read_ the letter: she heard him uttering it, and the
voice shook her with its old strange power. All the day before she had
been filled with the vision of a lonely future through which she must
carry the burthen of regret, upheld only by clinging faith. And here,
close within her reach, urging itself upon her even as a claim, was
another future, in which hard endurance and effort were to be
exchanged for easy, delicious leaning on another's loving strength!
And yet that promise of joy in the place of sadness did not make the
dire force of the temptation to Maggie.

It was Stephen's tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice of
her own resolve, that made the balance tremble, and made her once
start from her seat to reach the pen and paper, and write "Come!"

But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled; and the sense of
contradiction with her past self in her moments of strength and
clearness came upon her like a pang of conscious degradation. No, she
must wait; she must pray; the light that had forsaken her would come
again; she should feel again what she had felt when she had fled away,
under an inspiration strong enough to conquer agony,--to conquer love;
she should feel again what she had felt when Lucy stood by her, when
Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that bound her to the
calmer past.

She sat quite still, far on into the night, with no impulse to change
her attitude, without active force enough even for the mental act of
prayer; only waiting for the light that would surely come again. It
came with the memories that no passion could long quench; the long
past came back to her, and with it the fountains of self-renouncing
pity and affection, of faithfulness and resolve. The words that were
marked by the quiet hand in the little old book that she had long ago
learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a vent for
themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the loud driving of
the rain against the window and the loud moan and roar of the wind. "I
have received the Cross, I have received it from Thy hand; I will bear
it, and bear it till death, as Thou hast laid it upon me."

But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but in a
sob,--"Forgive me, Stephen! It will pass away. You will come back to
her."

She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it burn slowly
on the hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the last word of
parting.

"I will bear it, and bear it till death. But how long it will be
before death comes! I am so young, so healthy. How shall I have
patience and strength? Am I to struggle and fall and repent again? Has
life other trials as hard for me still?"

With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell on her knees against the
table, and buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her soul went out to the
Unseen Pity that would be with her to the end. Surely there was
something being taught her by this experience of great need; and she
must be learning a secret of human tenderness and long-suffering, that
the less erring could hardly know? "O God, if my life is to be long,
let me live to bless and comfort----"

At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about
her knees and feet; it was water flowing under her. She started up;
the stream was flowing under the door that led into the passage. She
was not bewildered for an instant; she knew it was the flood!

The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last twelve hours
seemed to have left a great calm in her; without screaming, she
hurried with the candle upstairs to Bob Jakin's bedroom. The door was
ajar; she went in and shook him by the shoulder.

"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house; let us see if we can make
the boats safe."

She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her baby,
burst into screams; and then she hurried down again to see if the
waters were rising fast. There was a step down into the room at the
door leading from the staircase; she saw that the water was already on
a level with the step. While she was looking, something came with a
tremendous crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the
old wooden framework inward in shivers, the water pouring in after it.

"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get the boats!"

And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged through the water,
which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the
candle she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill,
and crept into the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and
protruding through the window. Bob was not long after her, hurrying
without shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand.

"Why, they're both here,--both the boats," said Bob, as he got into
the one where Maggie was. "It's wonderful this fastening isn't broke
too, as well as the mooring."

In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening it, and
mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie incurred.
We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in
their danger, and Bob's mind was absorbed in possible expedients for
the safety of the helpless indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up,
had waked him, and had taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague
impression of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be
protected. She too had got possession of an oar, and had pushed off,
so as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame.

"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I doubt it'll be in at the
chambers before long,--th' house is so low. I've more mind to get
Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, if I could, and
trusten to the water,--for th' old house is none so safe. And if I let
go the boat--but _you_," he exclaimed, suddenly lifting the light of
his lanthorn on Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar in her
hand and her black hair streaming.

Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept along the
line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on to the wide water,
with a force that carried them far past the meeting current of the
river.

In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, but that
she had suddenly passed away from that life which she had been
dreading; it was the transition of death, without its agony,--and she
was alone in the darkness with God.

The whole thing had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that the threads of
ordinary association were broken; she sank down on the seat clutching
the oar mechanically, and for a long while had no distinct conception
of her position. The first thing that waked her to fuller
consciousness was the cessation of the rain, and a perception that the
darkness was divided by the faintest light, which parted the
overhanging gloom from the immeasurable watery level below. She was
driven out upon the flood,--that awful visitation of God which her
father used to talk of; which had made the nightmare of her childish
dreams. And with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old
home, and Tom, and her mother,--they had all listened together.

"O God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she cried out, in the dim
loneliness.

What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had once nearly
destroyed it. They might be in danger, in distress,--her mother and
her brother, alone there, beyond reach of help! Her whole soul was
strained now on that thought; and she saw the long-loved faces looking
for help into the darkness, and finding none.

She was floating in smooth water now,--perhaps far on the overflooded
fields. There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of
her mind to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the
curtain of gloom that she might seize the first sight of her
whereabout,--that she might catch some faint suggestion of the spot
toward which all her anxieties tended.

Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level, the gradual
uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly defining blackness of
objects above the glassy dark! Yes, she must be out on the fields;
those were the tops of hedgerow trees. Which way did the river lie?
Looking behind her, she saw the lines of black trees; looking before
her, there were none; then the river lay before her. She seized an oar
and began to paddle the boat forward with the energy of wakening hope;
the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, now she was in action; and
she could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on a mound
where they had taken refuge. Onward she paddled and rowed by turns in
the growing twilight; her wet clothes clung round her, and her
streaming hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was hardly
conscious of any bodily sensations,--except a sensation of strength,
inspired by mighty emotion. Along with the sense of danger and
possible rescue for those long-remembered beings at the old home,
there was an undefined sense of reconcilement with her brother; what
quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in
the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of
our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive
mortal needs? Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love
toward her brother that swept away all the later impressions of hard,
cruel offence and misunderstanding, and left only the deep,
underlying, unshakable memories of early union.

But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and near to her
Maggie could discern the current of the river. The dark mass must
be--yes, it was--St. Ogg's. Ah, now she knew which way to look for the
first glimpse of the well-known trees--the gray willows, the now
yellowing chestnuts--and above them the old roof! But there was no
color, no shape yet; all was faint and dim. More and more strongly the
energies seemed to come and put themselves forth, as if her life were
a stored-up force that was being spent in this hour, unneeded for any
future.

She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else she would
never be able to pass the Ripple and approach the house; this was the
thought that occurred to her, as she imagined with more and more
vividness the state of things round the old home. But then she might
be carried very far down, and be unable to guide her boat out of the
current again. For the first time distinct ideas of danger began to
press upon her; but there was no choice of courses, no room for
hesitation, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she went now
without effort; more and more clearly in the lessening distance and
the growing light she began to discern the objects that she knew must
be the well-known trees and roofs; nay, she was not far off a rushing,
muddy current that must be the strangely altered Ripple.

Great God! there were floating masses in it, that might dash against
her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish too soon. What were
those masses?

For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony of dread.
She sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was being floated along,
more intensely conscious of the anticipated clash. But the horror was
transient; it passed away before the oncoming warehouses of St. Ogg's.
She had passed the mouth of the Ripple, then; _now_, she must use all
her skill and power to manage the boat and get it if possible out of
the current. She could see now that the bridge was broken down; she
could see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over the watery
field. But no boats were to be seen moving on the river,--such as had
been laid hands on were employed in the flooded streets.

With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood up again to
paddle; but the now ebbing tide added to the swiftness of the river,
and she was carried along beyond the bridge. She could hear shouts
from the windows overlooking the river, as if the people there were
calling to her. It was not till she had passed on nearly to Tofton
that she could get the boat clear of the current. Then with one
yearning look toward her uncle Deane's house that lay farther down the
river, she took to both her oars and rowed with all her might across
the watery fields, back toward the Mill. Color was beginning to awake
now, and as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she could discern the
tints of the trees, could see the old Scotch firs far to the right,
and the home chestnuts,--oh, how deep they lay in the water,--deeper
than the trees on this side the hill! And the roof of the Mill--where
was it? Those heavy fragments hurrying down the Ripple,--what had they
meant? But it was not the house,--the house stood firm; drowned up to
the first story, but still firm,--or was it broken in at the end
toward the Mill?

With panting joy that she was there at last,--joy that overcame all
distress,--Maggie neared the front of the house. At first she heard no
sound; she saw no object moving. Her boat was on a level with the
upstairs window. She called out in a loud, piercing voice,--

"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is Maggie!"

Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she heard
Tom's voice,--

"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?"

"It is I, Tom,--Maggie. Where is mother?"

"She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. I'll
come down to the lower window."

"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, as he
opened the middle window, on a level with the boat.

"Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. Get in
quickly. Is there no one else?"

"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat; "I fear the man is drowned; he
was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part of the Mill fell with
the crash of trees and stones against it; I've shouted again and
again, and there has been no answer. Give me the oars, Maggie."

It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the wide
water,--he face to face with Maggie,--that the full meaning of what
had happened rushed upon his mind. It came with so overpowering a
force,--it was such a new revelation to his spirit, of the depths in
life that had lain beyond his vision, which he had fancied so keen and
clear,--that he was unable to ask a question. They sat mutely gazing
at each other,--Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out from a
weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain awe and humiliation.
Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and though he could ask
no question, he guessed a story of almost miraculous, divinely
protected effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes,
and the lips found a word they could utter,--the old childish
"Magsie!"

Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious,
wondrous happiness that is one with pain.

As soon as she could speak, she said, "We will go to Lucy, Tom; we'll
go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the rest."

Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed from poor
Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the river again, and
soon they would be at Tofton.

"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps
they have got Lucy there."

Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried toward them by
the river. Some wooden machinery had just given way on one of the
wharves, and huge fragments were being floated along. The sun was
rising now, and the wide area of watery desolation was spread out in
dreadful clearness around them; in dreadful clearness floated onward
the hurrying, threatening masses. A large company in a boat that was
working its way along under the Tofton houses observed their danger,
and shouted, "Get out of the current!"

But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before him, saw
death rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging together in fatal
fellowship, made one wide mass across the stream.

"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the
oars, and clasping her.

The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the
huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph.

But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden
water.

The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an
embrace never to be parted; living through again in one supreme moment
the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed
the daisied fields together.

Conclusion

Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine, and with
human labor. The desolation wrought by that flood had left little
visible trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth
autumn was rich in golden cornstacks, rising in thick clusters among
the distant hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were
busy again, with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and
unlading.

And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living,
except those whose end we know.

Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not
rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new
growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills
underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To
the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair.

Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard--where the brick
grave that held a father whom we know, was found with the stone laid
prostrate upon it after the flood--had recovered all its grassy order
and decent quiet.

Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the
flood, for two bodies that were found in close embrace; and it was
visited at different moments by two men who both felt that their
keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever buried there.

One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but
that was years after.

The other was always solitary. His great companionship was among the
trees of the Red Deeps, where the buried joy seemed still to hover,
like a revisiting spirit.

The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the
names it was written,--

               "In their death they were not divided."

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

completion: It's been raining non-stop for a few days and the river is starting to rise. But St. Ogg's hasn't had a bad flood in years, so most people aren't too concerned. Except for some old people who remember the last bad flood, but nobody listens to old people, so there you go. It's nighttime and Maggie is sitting up alone with a mysterious letter. Two days earlier Maggie was essentially fired from her job with Dr. Kenn. Poor Dr. Kenn heard about the rumors surrounding him and Maggie and tells Maggie that she really needs to just leave St. Ogg's for her own good. Maggie is upset and scared to be leaving. Today, Maggie received a letter from Stephen that begs her to come back to him and blames her for making him miserable. It's pretty childish and whiny. Maggie is tempted, though, and hates causing Stephen pain. But she finally decides not to abandon her resolve, even though she's miserable right now. Going to Stephen would just make matters worse for her. Maggie decides she's going to have to suffer and be miserable for the rest of her life and asks God for strength to endure it. Suddenly, water starts rushing into the house. The river is flooding. Bob and his family come down and try to get some boats. Maggie gets in a boat but is suddenly swept away down the river. She is alone and scared and sees the water spreading out over the fields and into St. Ogg's. After floating for a while, Maggie decides to head to the mill to see if she can help Tom. Tom is trapped. He says their mom is out of town and he is there alone. Tom gets into the boat with Maggie. They silently forgive each other for everything. The two decide to try to head to town to see about Lucy. But suddenly a huge surge of water comes straight for them. They are unable to get away and are carried under by the wave. Tom and Maggie drown together and their bodies are found, hands clasped together, after the flood waters recede.


prompt:
Chapter: Outside Dorlcote Mill

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green
banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its
passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black
ships--laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of
oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal--are borne along to
the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the
broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the
river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the
transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch
the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the
seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of
the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last
year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the
hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the
distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their
red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by
the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current
into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing
wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along
the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one
who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I
remember the stone bridge.

And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the
bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is
far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing
February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill, damp season
adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as
the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The
stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation,
and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.
As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate
bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and
branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love
with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads
far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward
appearance they make in the drier world above.

The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy
deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They
are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world
beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming
home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his
dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will
not touch it till he has fed his horses,--the strong, submissive,
meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from
between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that
awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their
shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy
because they are so near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that
seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks,
bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their
struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their
hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed
from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond.
Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace,
and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the
trees.

Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting
wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is
watching it too; she has been standing on just the same spot at the
edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer
white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in
ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous because
his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is
time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very
bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening
gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms
on the cold stone of this bridge....

Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the
arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in
front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years
ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs.
Tulliver were talking about, as they sat by the bright fire in the
left-hand parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.

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

completion: The novel opens with a description of the countryside around the town of St. Ogg's and the river Floss. Impersonal description quickly gives way to a more personal tone, and we see that the story is to be a personal reminiscence of a narrator whose character we do not yet know. The narrator notes a wagon passing the mill, and watches a little girl and her dog playing near the water. They remind the narrator of "one February afternoon many years ago" and Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver sitting by the fire in their parlor.


prompt:
Chapter: Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom

"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,--"what I want is to give
Tom a good eddication; an eddication as'll be a bread to him. That was
what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave the academy
at Lady-day. I mean to put him to a downright good school at
Midsummer. The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if
I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine
sight more schoolin' nor _I_ ever got. All the learnin' _my_ father
ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th'
other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might
be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a
flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations,
and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad,--I should
be sorry for him to be a raskill,--but a sort o' engineer, or a
surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them
smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big
watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're
not far off being even wi' the law, _I_ believe; for Riley looks
Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none
frightened at him."

Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a
fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped
caps were worn, they must be so near coming in again. At that time,
when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St. Ogg's, and
considered sweet things).

"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: _I've_ no objections. But hadn't I
better kill a couple o' fowl, and have th' aunts and uncles to dinner
next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg and sister Pullet have
got to say about it? There's a couple o' fowl _wants_ killing!"

"You may kill every fowl i' the yard if you like, Bessy; but I shall
ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," said Mr.
Tulliver, defiantly.

"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary rhetoric,
"how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way to speak
disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all the blame
upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe unborn. For
nobody's ever heard me say as it wasn't lucky for my children to have
aunts and uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Tom's to go to a
new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him;
else he might as well have calico as linen, for they'd be one as
yallow as th' other before they'd been washed half-a-dozen times. And
then, when the box is goin' back'ard and forrard, I could send the lad
a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple; for he can do with an extry bit,
bless him! whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can
eat as much victuals as most, thank God!"

"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "But you mustn't put a spoke
i' the wheel about the washin,' if we can't get a school near enough.
That's the fault I have to find wi' you, Bessy; if you see a stick i'
the road, you're allays thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me
not to hire a good wagoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on his face."

"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, "when did I iver
make objections to a man because he'd got a mole on his face? I'm sure
I'm rether fond o' the moles; for my brother, as is dead an' gone, had
a mole on his brow. But I can't remember your iver offering to hire a
wagoner with a mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadn't a mole
on his face no more nor you have, an' I was all for having you hire
_him_; an' so you did hire him, an' if he hadn't died o' th'
inflammation, as we paid Dr. Turnbull for attending him, he'd very
like ha' been drivin' the wagon now. He might have a mole somewhere
out o' sight, but how was I to know that, Mr. Tulliver?"

"No, no, Bessy; I didn't mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand for
summat else; but niver mind--it's puzzling work, talking is. What I'm
thinking on, is how to find the right sort o' school to send Tom to,
for I might be ta'en in again, as I've been wi' th' academy. I'll have
nothing to do wi' a 'cademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it
sha'n't be a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their
time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and getting
up the potatoes. It's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school
to pick."

Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into
his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there.
Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said, "I know
what I'll do: I'll talk it over wi' Riley; he's coming to-morrow, t'
arbitrate about the dam."

"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, and
Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best sheets, but
they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will; for as
for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buying 'em, only they'll
do to lay us out in. An' if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver,
they're mangled beautiful, an' all ready, an' smell o' lavender as it
'ud be a pleasure to lay 'em out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner
o' the big oak linen-chest at the back: not as I should trust anybody
to look 'em out but myself."

As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of
keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and
finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the
clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a susceptible man in his conjugal
relation, he might have supposed that she drew out the key to aid her
imagination in anticipating the moment when he would be in a state to
justify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not
so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-power;
moreover, he had the marital habit of not listening very closely, and
since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been apparently occupied in a
tactile examination of his woollen stockings.

"I think I've hit it, Bessy," was his first remark after a short
silence. "Riley's as likely a man as any to know o' some school; he's
had schooling himself, an' goes about to all sorts o' places,
arbitratin' and vallyin' and that. And we shall have time to talk it
over to-morrow night when the business is done. I want Tom to be such
a sort o' man as Riley, you know,--as can talk pretty nigh as well as
if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o' words as
don't mean much, so as you can't lay hold of 'em i' law; and a good
solid knowledge o' business too."

"Well," said Mrs. Tulliver, "so far as talking proper, and knowing
everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair
up, I shouldn't mind the lad being brought up to that. But them
fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false
shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till it's all a mess, and then hide it
with a bib; I know Riley does. And then, if Tom's to go and live at
Mudport, like Riley, he'll have a house with a kitchen hardly big
enough to turn in, an' niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an'
sleep up three pair o' stairs,--or four, for what I know,--and be
burnt to death before he can get down."

"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "I've no thoughts of his going to
Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's, close by us,
an' live at home. But," continued Mr. Tulliver after a pause, "what
I'm a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasn't got the right sort o' brains for
a smart fellow. I doubt he's a bit slowish. He takes after your
family, Bessy."

"Yes, that he does," said Mrs. Tulliver, accepting the last
proposition entirely on its own merits; "he's wonderful for liking a
deal o' salt in his broth. That was my brother's way, and my father's
before him."

"It seems a bit a pity, though," said Mr. Tulliver, "as the lad should
take after the mother's side instead o' the little wench. That's the
worst on't wi' crossing o' breeds: you can never justly calkilate
what'll come on't. The little un takes after my side, now: she's twice
as 'cute as Tom. Too 'cute for a woman, I'm afraid," continued Mr.
Tulliver, turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the
other. "It's no mischief much while she's a little un; but an
over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep,--she'll fetch
none the bigger price for that."

"Yes, it _is_ a mischief while she's a little un, Mr. Tulliver, for it
runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two hours
together passes my cunning. An' now you put me i' mind," continued
Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, "I don't know where she
is now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so,--wanderin' up
an' down by the water, like a wild thing: She'll tumble in some day."

Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her
head,--a process which she repeated more than once before she returned
to her chair.

"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she sat down,
"but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some things; for if I send
her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for, an'
perhaps 'ull sit down on the floor i' the sunshine an' plait her hair
an' sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur', all the while I'm waiting
for her downstairs. That niver run i' my family, thank God! no more
nor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I don't like to
fly i' the face o' Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but
one gell, an' her so comical."

"Pooh, nonsense!" said Mr. Tulliver; "she's a straight, black-eyed
wench as anybody need wish to see. I don't know i' what she's behind
other folks's children; and she can read almost as well as the
parson."

"But her hair won't curl all I can do with it, and she's so franzy
about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as never was to make
her stand and have it pinched with th' irons."

"Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father, rashly.

"How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She's too big a gell--gone nine,
and tall of her age--to have her hair cut short; an' there's her
cousin Lucy's got a row o' curls round her head, an' not a hair out o'
place. It seems hard as my sister Deane should have that pretty child;
I'm sure Lucy takes more after me nor my own child does. Maggie,
Maggie," continued the mother, in a tone of half-coaxing fretfulness,
as this small mistake of nature entered the room, "where's the use o'
my telling you to keep away from the water? You'll tumble in and be
drownded some day, an' then you'll be sorry you didn't do as mother
told you."

Maggie's hair, as she threw off her bonnet, painfully confirmed her
mother's accusation. Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a
curled crop, "like other folks's children," had had it cut too short
in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight
an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly
tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming
black eyes,--an action which gave her very much the air of a small
Shetland pony.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to throw your
bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there's a good gell, an' let your
hair be brushed, an' put your other pinafore on, an' change your
shoes, do, for shame; an' come an' go on with your patchwork, like a
little lady."

"Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I don't _want_
to do my patchwork."

"What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt
Glegg?"

"It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane,--"tearing
things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And I don't want to do
anything for my aunt Glegg. I don't like her."

Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver
laughs audibly.

"I wonder at you, as you'll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver," said the
mother, with feeble fretfulness in her tone. "You encourage her i'
naughtiness. An' her aunts will have it as it's me spoils her."

Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,--never cried,
when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and
from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted;
in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk
and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn
only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I
have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the
blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity
undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little
too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to
feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more
and more ineffectual.

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

completion: Mr. Tulliver states his intention of sending Tom to a different school, where he can learn to be "a sort o' engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay . . . ." Mrs. Tulliver wishes to call in the aunts and uncles to discuss the proposition. Mr. Tulliver says he will do as he pleases. His wife is shocked at his independence of his wealthier relatives, and Tulliver himself does not know quite where he should send Tom. He decides to ask advice from Mr. Riley, a man of some education. Mrs. Tulliver worries about how Tom will live, who will do his washing, and whether he will get enough to eat. The talk turns to Maggie, who is said to take after her father. She is clever, but it "all runs to naughtiness." She cares little about her appearance and is forgetful in other ways. This is all seen to be true as Maggie comes in late for tea with her hair in disarray. Mrs. Tulliver tries to persuade her to do her patchwork for her aunt Glegg, but Maggie expresses a strong dislike for both patchwork and her aunt. This amuses Mr. Tulliver. Mrs. Tulliver frets, because Maggie is so different from what she herself was as a child.


prompt:
Chapter: Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom

The gentleman in the ample white cravat and shirt-frill, taking his
brandy-and-water so pleasantly with his good friend Tulliver, is Mr.
Riley, a gentleman with a waxen complexion and fat hands, rather
highly educated for an auctioneer and appraiser, but large-hearted
enough to show a great deal of _bonhomie_ toward simple country
acquaintances of hospitable habits. Mr. Riley spoke of such
acquaintances kindly as "people of the old school."

The conversation had come to a pause. Mr. Tulliver, not without a
particular reason, had abstained from a seventh recital of the cool
retort by which Riley had shown himself too many for Dix, and how
Wakem had had his comb cut for once in his life, now the business of
the dam had been settled by arbitration, and how there never would
have been any dispute at all about the height of water if everybody
was what they should be, and Old Harry hadn't made the lawyers.

Mr. Tulliver was, on the whole, a man of safe traditional opinions;
but on one or two points he had trusted to his unassisted intellect,
and had arrived at several questionable conclusions; amongst the rest,
that rats, weevils, and lawyers were created by Old Harry. Unhappily
he had no one to tell him that this was rampant Manichaeism, else he
might have seen his error. But to-day it was clear that the good
principle was triumphant: this affair of the water-power had been a
tangled business somehow, for all it seemed--look at it one way--as
plain as water's water; but, big a puzzle as it was, it hadn't got the
better of Riley. Mr. Tulliver took his brandy-and-water a little
stronger than usual, and, for a man who might be supposed to have a
few hundreds lying idle at his banker's, was rather incautiously open
in expressing his high estimate of his friend's business talents.

But the dam was a subject of conversation that would keep; it could
always be taken up again at the same point, and exactly in the same
condition; and there was another subject, as you know, on which Mr.
Tulliver was in pressing want of Mr. Riley's advice. This was his
particular reason for remaining silent for a short space after his
last draught, and rubbing his knees in a meditative manner. He was not
a man to make an abrupt transition. This was a puzzling world, as he
often said, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on
an awkward corner. Mr. Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient. Why should
he be? Even Hotspur, one would think, must have been patient in his
slippers on a warm hearth, taking copious snuff, and sipping
gratuitous brandy-and-water.

"There's a thing I've got i' my head," said Mr. Tulliver at last, in
rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked
steadfastly at his companion.

"Ah!" said Mr. Riley, in a tone of mild interest. He was a man with
heavy waxen eyelids and high-arched eyebrows, looking exactly the same
under all circumstances. This immovability of face, and the habit of
taking a pinch of snuff before he gave an answer, made him trebly
oracular to Mr. Tulliver.

"It's a very particular thing," he went on; "it's about my boy Tom."

At the sound of this name, Maggie, who was seated on a low stool close
by the fire, with a large book open on her lap, shook her heavy hair
back and looked up eagerly. There were few sounds that roused Maggie
when she was dreaming over her book, but Tom's name served as well as
the shrillest whistle; in an instant she was on the watch, with
gleaming eyes, like a Skye terrier suspecting mischief, or at all
events determined to fly at any one who threatened it toward Tom.

"You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer," said Mr.
Tulliver; "he's comin' away from the 'cademy at Lady-day, an' I shall
let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I want to send him to
a downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him."

"Well," said Mr. Riley, "there's no greater advantage you can give him
than a good education. Not," he added, with polite significance,--"not
that a man can't be an excellent miller and farmer, and a shrewd,
sensible fellow into the bargain, without much help from the
schoolmaster."

"I believe you," said Mr. Tulliver, winking, and turning his head on
one side; "but that's where it is. I don't _mean_ Tom to be a miller
and farmer. I see no fun i' that. Why, if I made him a miller an'
farmer, he'd be expectin' to take to the mill an' the land, an'
a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by an' think o' my latter
end. Nay, nay, I've seen enough o' that wi' sons. I'll never pull my
coat off before I go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an' put
him to a business, as he may make a nest for himself, an' not want to
push me out o' mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I'm dead an' gone.
I sha'n't be put off wi' spoon-meat afore I've lost my teeth."

This was evidently a point on which Mr. Tulliver felt strongly; and
the impetus which had given unusual rapidity and emphasis to his
speech showed itself still unexhausted for some minutes afterward in a
defiant motion of the head from side to side, and an occasional "Nay,
nay," like a subsiding growl.

These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie, and cut her to
the quick. Tom, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his
father out of doors, and of making the future in some way tragic by
his wickedness. This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from
her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang
within the fender, and going up between her father's knees, said, in a
half-crying, half-indignant voice,--

"Father, Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."

Mrs. Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice supper-dish,
and Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched; so Maggie was not scolded about
the book. Mr. Riley quietly picked it up and looked at it, while the
father laughed, with a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and
patted his little girl on the back, and then held her hands and kept
her between his knees.

"What! they mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" said Mr. Tulliver,
looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice,
turning to Mr. Riley, as though Maggie couldn't hear, "She understands
what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear her
read,--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at
her book! But it's bad--it's bad," Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking
this blamable exultation. "A woman's no business wi' being so clever;
it'll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!"--here the exultation
was clearly recovering the mastery,--"she'll read the books and
understand 'em better nor half the folks as are growed up."

Maggie's cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought
Mr. Riley would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that
he thought nothing of her before.

Mr. Riley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make
nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently
looked at her, and said,--

"Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some
pictures,--I want to know what they mean."

Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's
elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and
tossing back her mane, while she said,--

"Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, isn't it?
But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the water's a
witch,--they've put her in to find out whether she's a witch or no;
and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's drowned--and killed, you
know--she's innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old
woman. But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was
drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go to heaven, and God would make it up
to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with his arms akimbo,
laughing,--oh, isn't he ugly?--I'll tell you what he is. He's the
Devil _really_" (here Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic),
"and not a right blacksmith; for the Devil takes the shape of wicked
men, and walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's
oftener in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know,
if people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run away,
and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased."

Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with
petrifying wonder.

"Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out at
last.

"The 'History of the Devil,' by Daniel Defoe,--not quite the right
book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your
books, Mr. Tulliver?"

Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said,--

"Why, it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all
bound alike,--it's a good binding, you see,--and I thought they'd be
all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying' among
'em. I read in it often of a Sunday" (Mr. Tulliver felt somehow a
familiarity with that great writer, because his name was Jeremy); "and
there's a lot more of 'em,--sermons mostly, I think,--but they've all
got the same covers, and I thought they were all o' one sample, as you
may say. But it seems one mustn't judge by th' outside. This is a
puzzlin' world."

"Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory, patronizing tone as he
patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the 'History of the
Devil,' and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier books?"

"Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to vindicate
the variety of her reading. "I know the reading in this book isn't
pretty; but I like the pictures, and I make stories to the pictures
out of my own head, you know. But I've got 'AEsop's Fables,' and a book
about Kangaroos and things, and the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"

"Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley; "you can't read a better."

"Well, but there's a great deal about the Devil in that," said Maggie,
triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in his true shape,
as he fought with Christian."

Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair,
and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan,
which opened at once, without the least trouble of search, at the
picture she wanted.

"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom colored
him for me with his paints when he was at home last holidays,--the
body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, because he's
all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes."

"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel rather
uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal appearance of a
being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up the book, and let's
hear no more o' such talk. It is as I thought--the child 'ull learn
more mischief nor good wi' the books. Go, go and see after your
mother."

Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not
being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by
going into a dark corner behind her father's chair, and nursing her
doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom's
absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on
it that the waxen cheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.

"Did you ever hear the like on't?" said Mr. Tulliver, as Maggie
retired. "It's a pity but what she'd been the lad,--she'd ha' been a
match for the lawyers, _she_ would. It's the wonderful'st thing"--here
he lowered his voice--"as I picked the mother because she wasn't o'er
'cute--bein' a good-looking woman too, an' come of a rare family for
managing; but I picked her from her sisters o' purpose, 'cause she was
a bit weak like; for I wasn't agoin' to be told the rights o' things
by my own fireside. But you see when a man's got brains himself,
there's no knowing where they'll run to; an' a pleasant sort o' soft
woman may go on breeding you stupid lads and 'cute wenches, till it's
like as if the world was turned topsy-turvy. It's an uncommon puzzlin'
thing."

Mr. Riley's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under the
application of his pinch of snuff before he said,--

"But your lad's not stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last,
busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."

"Well, he isn't not to say stupid,--he's got a notion o' things out o'
door, an' a sort o' common sense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the
right handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and he reads but
poorly, and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me,
an' as shy as can be wi' strangers, an' you never hear him say 'cute
things like the little wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a
school where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his
pen, and make a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these
fellows as have got the start o' me with having better schooling. Not
but what, if the world had been left as God made it, I could ha' seen
my way, and held my own wi' the best of 'em; but things have got so
twisted round and wrapped up i' unreasonable words, as aren't a bit
like 'em, as I'm clean at fault, often an' often. Everything winds
about so--the more straightforrad you are, the more you're puzzled."

Mr. Tulliver took a draught, swallowed it slowly, and shook his head
in a melancholy manner, conscious of exemplifying the truth that a
perfectly sane intellect is hardly at home in this insane world.

"You're quite in the right of it, Tulliver," observed Mr. Riley.
"Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than
leave it him in your will. I know I should have tried to do so by a
son of mine, if I'd had one, though, God knows, I haven't your ready
money to play with, Tulliver; and I have a houseful of daughters into
the bargain."

"I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be just the thing for
Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, not diverted from his purpose by any sympathy
with Mr. Riley's deficiency of ready cash.

Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Tulliver in suspense by
a silence that seemed deliberative, before he said,--

"I know of a very fine chance for any one that's got the necessary
money and that's what you have, Tulliver. The fact is, I wouldn't
recommend any friend of mine to send a boy to a regular school, if he
could afford to do better. But if any one wanted his boy to get
superior instruction and training, where he would be the companion of
his master, and that master a first rate fellow, I know his man. I
wouldn't mention the chance to everybody, because I don't think
everybody would succeed in getting it, if he were to try; but I
mention it to you, Tulliver, between ourselves."

The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Tulliver had been watching
his friend's oracular face became quite eager.

"Ay, now, let's hear," he said, adjusting himself in his chair with
the complacency of a person who is thought worthy of important
communications.

"He's an Oxford man," said Mr. Riley, sententiously, shutting his
mouth close, and looking at Mr. Tulliver to observe the effect of this
stimulating information.

"What! a parson?" said Mr. Tulliver, rather doubtfully.

"Yes, and an M.A. The bishop, I understand, thinks very highly of him:
why, it was the bishop who got him his present curacy."

"Ah?" said Mr. Tulliver, to whom one thing was as wonderful as another
concerning these unfamiliar phenomena. "But what can he want wi' Tom,
then?"

"Why, the fact is, he's fond of teaching, and wishes to keep up his
studies, and a clergyman has but little opportunity for that in his
parochial duties. He's willing to take one or two boys as pupils to
fill up his time profitably. The boys would be quite of the
family,--the finest thing in the world for them; under Stelling's eye
continually."

"But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o' pudding?" said
Mrs. Tulliver, who was now in her place again. "He's such a boy for
pudding as never was; an' a growing boy like that,--it's dreadful to
think o' their stintin' him."

"And what money 'ud he want?" said Mr. Tulliver, whose instinct told
him that the services of this admirable M.A. would bear a high price.

"Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty with his
youngest pupils, and he's not to be mentioned with Stelling, the man I
speak of. I know, on good authority, that one of the chief people at
Oxford said, Stelling might get the highest honors if he chose. But he
didn't care about university honors; he's a quiet man--not noisy."

"Ah, a deal better--a deal better," said Mr. Tulliver; "but a hundred
and fifty's an uncommon price. I never thought o' paying so much as
that."

"A good education, let me tell you, Tulliver,--a good education is
cheap at the money. But Stelling is moderate in his terms; he's not a
grasping man. I've no doubt he'd take your boy at a hundred, and
that's what you wouldn't get many other clergymen to do. I'll write to
him about it, if you like."

Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a
meditative manner.

"But belike he's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Tulliver, in the interval;
"an' I've no opinion o' housekeepers. There was my brother, as is dead
an' gone, had a housekeeper once, an' she took half the feathers out
o' the best bed, an' packed 'em up an' sent 'em away. An' it's unknown
the linen she made away with--Stott her name was. It 'ud break my
heart to send Tom where there's a housekeeper, an' I hope you won't
think of it, Mr. Tulliver."

"You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr.
Riley, "for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man
need wish for a wife. There isn't a kinder little soul in the world; I
know her family well. She has very much your complexion,--light curly
hair. She comes of a good Mudport family, and it's not every offer
that would have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stelling's not an
every-day man; rather a particular fellow as to the people he chooses
to be connected with. But I _think_ he would have no objection to take
your son; I _think_ he would not, on my representation."

"I don't know what he could have _against_ the lad," said Mrs.
Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation; "a nice
fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see."

"But there's one thing I'm thinking on," said Mr. Tulliver, turning
his head on one side and looking at Mr. Riley, after a long perusal of
the carpet. "Wouldn't a parson be almost too high-learnt to bring up a
lad to be a man o' business? My notion o' the parsons was as they'd
got a sort o' learning as lay mostly out o' sight. And that isn't what
I want for Tom. I want him to know figures, and write like print, and
see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap
things up in words as aren't actionable. It's an uncommon fine thing,
that is," concluded Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head, "when you can let
a man know what you think of him without paying for it."

"Oh, my dear Tulliver," said Mr. Riley, "you're quite under a mistake
about the clergy; all the best schoolmasters are of the clergy. The
schoolmasters who are not clergymen are a very low set of men
generally."

"Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'cademy," interposed Mr. Tulliver.

"To be sure,--men who have failed in other trades, most likely. Now, a
clergyman is a gentleman by profession and education; and besides
that, he has the knowledge that will ground a boy, and prepare him for
entering on any career with credit. There may be some clergymen who
are mere bookmen; but you may depend upon it, Stelling is not one of
them,--a man that's wide awake, let me tell you. Drop him a hint, and
that's enough. You talk of figures, now; you have only to say to
Stelling, 'I want my son to be a thorough arithmetician,' and you may
leave the rest to him."

Mr. Riley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, some-what reassured as
to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to an imaginary Mr.
Stelling the statement, "I want my son to know 'rethmetic."

"You see, my dear Tulliver," Mr. Riley continued, "when you get a
thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he's at no loss to take up any
branch of instruction. When a workman knows the use of his tools, he
can make a door as well as a window."

"Ay, that's true," said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now that the
clergy must be the best of schoolmasters.

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do for you," said Mr. Riley, "and I
wouldn't do it for everybody. I'll see Stelling's father-in-law, or
drop him a line when I get back to Mudport, to say that you wish to
place your boy with his son-in-law, and I dare say Stelling will write
to you, and send you his terms."

"But there's no hurry, is there?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "for I hope, Mr.
Tulliver, you won't let Tom begin at his new school before Midsummer.
He began at the 'cademy at the Lady-day quarter, and you see what
good's come of it."

"Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi' bad malt upo' Michael-masday, else
you'll have a poor tap," said Mr. Tulliver, winking and smiling at Mr.
Riley, with the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife
conspicuously his inferior in intellect. "But it's true there's no
hurry; you've hit it there, Bessy."

"It might be as well not to defer the arrangement too long," said Mr.
Riley, quietly, "for Stelling may have propositions from other
parties, and I know he would not take more than two or three boarders,
if so many. If I were you, I think I would enter on the subject with
Stelling at once: there's no necessity for sending the boy before
Midsummer, but I would be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody
forestalls you."

"Ay, there's summat in that," said Mr. Tulliver.

"Father," broke in Maggie, who had stolen unperceived to her father's
elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll
topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the
chair,--"father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? Sha'n't we
ever go to see him?"

"I don't know, my wench," said the father, tenderly. "Ask Mr. Riley;
he knows."

Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, "How far
is it, please, sir?"

"Oh, a long, long way off," that gentleman answered, being of opinion
that children, when they are not naughty, should always be spoken to
jocosely. "You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him."

"That's nonsense!" said Maggie, tossing her head haughtily, and
turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes. She began to
dislike Mr. Riley; it was evident he thought her silly and of no
consequence.

"Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and chattering,"
said her mother. "Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold
your tongue, do. But," added Mrs. Tulliver, who had her own alarm
awakened, "is it so far off as I couldn't wash him and mend him?"

"About fifteen miles; that's all," said Mr. Riley. "You can drive
there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or--Stelling is a
hospitable, pleasant man--he'd be glad to have you stay."

"But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs. Tulliver,
sadly.

The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty, and
relieved Mr. Riley from the labor of suggesting some solution or
compromise,--a labor which he would otherwise doubtless have
undertaken; for, as you perceive, he was a man of very obliging
manners. And he had really given himself the trouble of recommending
Mr. Stelling to his friend Tulliver without any positive expectation
of a solid, definite advantage resulting to himself, notwithstanding
the subtle indications to the contrary which might have misled a
too-sagacious observer. For there is nothing more widely misleading
than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity,
persuaded that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a
consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste its energies on
imaginary game.

Plotting covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass
a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the dramatist:
they demand too intense a mental action for many of our
fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy enough to spoil
the lives of our neighbors without taking so much trouble; we can do
it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial falsities for
which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralized by small
extravagances, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised
insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small
family of immediate desires; we do little else than snatch a morsel to
satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the next
year's crop.

Mr. Riley was a man of business, and not cold toward his own interest,
yet even he was more under the influence of small promptings than of
far-sighted designs. He had no private understanding with the Rev.
Walter Stelling; on the contrary, he knew very little of that M.A. and
his acquirements,--not quite enough, perhaps, to warrant so strong a
recommendation of him as he had given to his friend Tulliver. But he
believed Mr. Stelling to be an excellent classic, for Gadsby had said
so, and Gadsby's first cousin was an Oxford tutor; which was better
ground for the belief even than his own immediate observation would
have been, for though Mr. Riley had received a tincture of the
classics at the great Mudport Free School, and had a sense of
understanding Latin generally, his comprehension of any particular
Latin was not ready. Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his
juvenile contact with the "De Senectute" and the fourth book of the
"AEneid," but it had ceased to be distinctly recognizable as classical,
and was only perceived in the higher finish and force of his
auctioneering style. Then, Stelling was an Oxford man, and the Oxford
men were always--no, no, it was the Cambridge men who were always good
mathematicians. But a man who had had a university education could
teach anything he liked; especially a man like Stelling, who had made
a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion, and had
acquitted himself so well that it was generally remarked, this
son-in-law of Timpson's was a sharp fellow. It was to be expected of a
Mudport man, from the parish of St. Ursula, that he would not omit to
do a good turn to a son-in-law of Timpson's, for Timpson was one of
the most useful and influential men in the parish, and had a good deal
of business, which he knew how to put into the right hands. Mr. Riley
liked such men, quite apart from any money which might be diverted,
through their good judgment, from less worthy pockets into his own;
and it would be a satisfaction to him to say to Timpson on his return
home, "I've secured a good pupil for your son-in-law." Timpson had a
large family of daughters; Mr. Riley felt for him; besides, Louisa
Timpson's face, with its light curls, had been a familiar object to
him over the pew wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen years; it was
natural her husband should be a commendable tutor. Moreover, Mr. Riley
knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground for recommending
in preference; why, then, should he not recommend Stelling? His friend
Tulliver had asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in
friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you
deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an
air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in
uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. Thus Mr. Riley, knowing no
harm of Stelling to begin with, and wishing him well, so far as he had
any wishes at all concerning him, had no sooner recommended him than
he began to think with admiration of a man recommended on such high
authority, and would soon have gathered so warm an interest on the
subject, that if Mr. Tulliver had in the end declined to send Tom to
Stelling, Mr. Riley would have thought his "friend of the old school"
a thoroughly pig-headed fellow.

If you blame Mr. Riley very severely for giving a recommendation on
such slight grounds, I must say you are rather hard upon him. Why
should an auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago, who had as good
as forgotten his free-school Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate
scrupulosity which is not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned
professions, even in our present advanced stage of morality?

Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can scarcely
abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be
good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally quarters an
inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom she has otherwise no
ill will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite. If Mr. Riley
had shrunk from giving a recommendation that was not based on valid
evidence, he would not have helped Mr. Stelling to a paying pupil, and
that would not have been so well for the reverend gentleman. Consider,
too, that all the pleasant little dim ideas and complacencies--of
standing well with Timpson, of dispensing advice when he was asked for
it, of impressing his friend Tulliver with additional respect, of
saying something, and saying it emphatically, with other inappreciably
minute ingredients that went along with the warm hearth and the
brandy-and-water to make up Mr. Riley's consciousness on this
occasion--would have been a mere blank.

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

completion: Mr. Riley comes to visit, and before supper Mr. Tulliver asks his advice about a school for Tom. He hints that he thinks it best to start Tom in another field, "as he may make a nest for himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine." Maggie is in the room, and she leaps to Tom's defense. She drops the book she has been reading, and Mr. Riley picks it up. It is The History of the Devil. Riley is surprised that she reads such things, but Mr. Tulliver says he didn't know what it was; he had bought it for the cover. Maggie shows off the breadth of her knowledge, but when she talks of the devil her father sends her from the room. He remarks that, unlike her mother, she is a little too intelligent for a woman. Mr. Riley easily agrees that a good education is the best thing for Tom, and he recommends as a tutor the son-in-law of a business acquaintance. He actually knows very little of the man, a clergyman named Rev. Walter Stelling; but he has heard him well spoken of. Tulliver is anxious about the price, which Riley thinks likely to be rather high. However, he says Stelling is "not a grasping man," and he might do it for a hundred pounds, which is less than most clergymen would charge. Mrs. Tulliver worries aloud as to whether Tom will get enough to eat, but Riley assures her that Mrs. Stelling is an excellent housekeeper. Tulliver then wonders whether Tom would get the right kind of education, a good practical education, and not "the sort o' learning as lay mostly out o' sight." Riley is confident that Rev. Stelling can teach anything, just as a workman who knows his tools can make a door as well as a window. He even offers to contact Stelling for them. The author observes that Riley is not giving his aid from any hope of gain, as the reader might think. He simply wants to be of help, and the fact that he knows nothing is no reason to refuse his aid by withholding his opinion.


prompt:
Chapter: Tom Is Expected

It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed to go
with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the
academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little
girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very
strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of
opinion that when her mother was in the act of brushing out the
reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and
dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive
determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day.

"Maggie, Maggie!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and helpless
with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you if you're so
naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet when they come
next week, and they'll never love you any more. Oh dear, oh dear! look
at your clean pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's
a judgment on me as I've got such a child,--they'll think I've done
summat wicked."

Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of
hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run under the old
high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran,
like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie's
favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here
she fretted out all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten
floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with
cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her
misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once
stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but was
now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three
nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's
nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been
suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old
Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than
usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But
immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many
nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt
when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make
believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg
would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly
humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven
no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and
beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys
that made two square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she
did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a
passion that expelled every other form of consciousness,--even the
memory of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were
getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of
sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten
shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun
was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again;
the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer
white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and
sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. It was
irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized
her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the
passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in
the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled,
"Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap danced and barked round her,
as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for
it.

"Hegh, hegh, Miss! you'll make yourself giddy, an' tumble down i' the
dirt," said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man of
forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness,
like an auricula.

Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, "Oh no,
it doesn't make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?"

Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came
out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her
dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the unresting
motion of the great stones, giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the
presence of an uncontrollable force; the meal forever pouring,
pouring; the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the
very spidernets look like a faery lace-work; the sweet, pure scent of
the meal,--all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little
world apart from her outside every-day life. The spiders were
especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had
any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a
painful difficulty in their family intercourse,--a fat and floury
spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer
a little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_, and the
lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's appearance. But
the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story,--the
corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could
sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this
recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very
communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her
father did.

Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the
present occasion for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near
which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was
requisite in mill-society,--

"I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?"

"Nay, Miss, an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great frankness.
"I'm no reader, I aren't."

"But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_
pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there's 'Pug's
Tour of Europe,'--that would tell you all about the different sorts of
people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the
pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people,
and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you
know, and one sitting on a barrel."

"Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i'
knowin' about _them_."

"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our
fellow-creatures."

"Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; all I know--my old
master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my
wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much
as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't
goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo, an' rogues
enoo, wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em."

"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided
views about Dutchmen, "perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature'
better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos,
and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,--I
forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead
of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them,
Luke?"

"Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn; I can't do
wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks
to the gallows,--knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their
bread by. An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the
books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the
streets."

"Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie, wishing to turn
the conversation agreeably; "Tom's not fond of reading. I love Tom so
dearly, Luke,--better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up
I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell
him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he
doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens."

"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all
dead."

"Dead!" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn.
"Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom
spent all his money to buy?"

"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the
unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.

"Oh dear, Luke," said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears
rolled down her cheek; "Tom told me to take care of 'em, and I forgot.
What _shall_ I do?"

"Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an' it was
nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to
feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; _he's_ an offal creatur as
iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own
inside--an' I wish it 'ud gripe him."

"Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day;
but how could I, when they didn't come into my head, you know? Oh, he
will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his
rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what _shall_ I do?"

"Don't you fret, Miss," said Luke, soothingly; "they're nash things,
them lop-eared rabbits; they'd happen ha' died, if they'd been fed.
Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He
made the rabbits' ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness
to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know
better nor buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will
you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin' this minute."

The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and
her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to
his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and
with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the
Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's wife, was a decidedly agreeable
acquaintance. She exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle, and
possessed various works of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had
any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to
look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son
in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have
been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like
that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense
with a wig. But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on
her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of
this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where
he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches
unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine apparently of some
foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their
feast of husks.

"I'm very glad his father took him back again, aren't you, Luke?" she
said. "For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn't do wrong again."

"Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's
feyther do what he would for him."

That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the
subsequent history of the young man had not been left a blank.

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

completion: Because Maggie is not allowed to go out to meet Tom on his arrival, she takes revenge by dousing her newly brushed hair in a basin of water and then goes to the attic to torment a doll she keeps as a fetish. Finally she tires of that and goes out to talk to Luke the miller. She tries to show off her cleverness to Luke, but he is not interested in any sort of learning. Luke reminds her that she has allowed Tom's rabbits to die through neglect, and Maggie is momentarily crushed. But Luke invites her to visit his wife, and she quickly forgets Tom. At Luke's home she is enchanted with a picture of the prodigal son, and she expresses her happiness that he was taken back by his father. She is pained by Luke's thought that the prodigal son was probably not much of a person.