an' down by the water, like a wild thing: she 'Il 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 up stairs to fetch anything, she for⚫ gets 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 down stairs. 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 did n'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.

"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 towards 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 Ladyday, 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 I showed itself still unexhausted for some minutes afterwards, 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 would n't be naughty to you ever; I know he would n'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.

And

What! they must n'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 could n't hear, "She understands what one's talking about so as never was. 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

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:

66

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

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:

:

"O, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, is n'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 - O, is n'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 could n'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

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 must n'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?"

O yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to vindicate the variety of her reading, "I know the reading in this book is n'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 Esop's Fables,' and a book about kangaroos and things, and the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'

66

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

66

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 book-case 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 peremptory, 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, towards 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 ap

pearance.

"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 was n'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 was n'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 seemcd quite up to it."

"Well, he is n'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 'cm; but things have got so twisted round and wrapped up i' unreasonable words, as are n't a bit like 'em, as I'm clean at fault, often an' often. Everything winds about so, the more straightforrard 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