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 down stairs, 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, "O no, it does n'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 spider-nets look like a fairy 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 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 are n'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 did n'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 be n'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

my

think, Miss; all I know, - my old master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow 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 are n't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo - - an' rogues eno0- - wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em."

"O, 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 sun-fish, 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. Should n't you like to know about them, Luke?"

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."

"O Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day; but how could I, when they did n't come into my head, you know? O, he will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits - and so am I sorry. O, 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 does n't like 'em. He made the rabbits' cars 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 kneebreeches 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.

TOM COMES HOME.

Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came, that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels, and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on

Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning.

"There he is, my sweet lad! But Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoilt the set."

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap - what! are you there?"

Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered towards the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and, at twelve or thirteen years of age, look as much alike as goslings: :- a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows, -a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pinkand-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

“Maggie," said Tom, confidentially taking her into a corner, as soon as his mother was gone out to examine

B

No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I can't bear guessing. Please be good to me."

Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then it's a new fish-line -two new uns, -one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I would n't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save the money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I would n't. And here's hooks; see here! . I say, won't we go and fish to-morrow down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything, won't it be fun?"

Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck and hug him, and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly un

66

Yes, very, very good. . . . I do love you, Tom."

Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again.

"And the fellows fought me because I would n't give in about the toffee."

"O dear! I wish they would n't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?"

"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:

"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know, that's what he got by wanting to leather me; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me."

"O, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, would n't you, Tom?"

"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions, only in the shows."

"No; but if we were in the lion countries, - I mean in Africa, where it's very hot, - the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it."

"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."

"But if you had n't got a gun, we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, -just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run towards us roaring, and we could n't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the lion is n't coming. What's the use of talking?

But I like to fancy how it would