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“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. I doubt Tom’s a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy.”

“Yes, that he does,” said Mrs. Tulliver; “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 of a pity, though,” said Mr. Tulliver, “as the lad should take after the mother’s side instead o’ the little wench. The little un takes after my side, now: she’s twice as ‘cute as Tom.”

“Yes, Mr. Tulliver, and it all 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–there she is, 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.

“You talk o’ ‘cuteness, Mr. Tulliver,” she said as she sat down; “but I’m sure the child’s very slow i’ some things, for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she’s gone for.”

“Pooh, nonsense!” said Mr. Tulliver. “She’s a straight, black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see; 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.–Maggie, Maggie,” continued the mother, as the child herself 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, and then you’ll be sorry you didn’t do as mother told you.”

Maggie threw off her bonnet. Now, Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a curled crop, 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.

“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 and go on with your patchwork, like a little lady.”

“O mother,” said Maggie in a very 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 silly work,” said Maggie, with a toss of her mane–“tearing things to pieces to sew ’em together again. And I don’t want to sew anything for my Aunt Glegg; I don’t like her.”

Exit Maggie, drawing 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. “An’ her aunts will have it as it’s me spoils her.”

Chapter II.

THE CHOICE OF A SCHOOL.

Mr. Riley, who came next day, was a gentleman with a waxen face and fat hands. He talked with his host for some time about the water supply to Dorlcote Mill. Then after a short silence Mr. Tulliver changed the subject.

“There’s a thing I’ve got i’ my head,” said he at last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked at his companion.