The Mill on the Floss George Eliot (ereader android .txt) 📖

air makes her draw her large shawl close about her and trip along rather quickly; though she looks round, as usual, that she may take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager, inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing.

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

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

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

“You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Maggie,” said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh moment of silence, “I was a fool to say it; forget that