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see you very often, and we should all be on the lookout to do everything we could towards making you comfortable.ā€

A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking under some embarrassment, necessarily blunders on words that are coarser than his intentions, and that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible feelings. While he had been speaking, Eppie had quietly passed her arm behind Silasā€™s head, and let her hand rest against it caressingly: she felt him trembling violently. He was silent for some moments when Mr. Cass had endedā ā€”powerless under the conflict of emotions, all alike painful. Eppieā€™s heart was swelling at the sense that her father was in distress; and she was just going to lean down and speak to him, when one struggling dread at last gained the mastery over every other in Silas, and he said, faintlyā ā€”

ā€œEppie, my child, speak. I wonā€™t stand in your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass.ā€

Eppie took her hand from her fatherā€™s head, and came forward a step. Her cheeks were flushed, but not with shyness this time: the sense that her father was in doubt and suffering banished that sort of self-consciousness. She dropped a low curtsy, first to Mrs. Cass and then to Mr. Cass, and saidā ā€”

ā€œThank you, maā€™amā ā€”thank you, sir. But I canā€™t leave my father, nor own anybody nearer than him. And I donā€™t want to be a ladyā ā€”thank you all the sameā€ (here Eppie dropped another curtsy). ā€œI couldnā€™t give up the folks Iā€™ve been used to.ā€

Eppieā€™s lips began to tremble a little at the last words. She retreated to her fatherā€™s chair again, and held him round the neck: while Silas, with a subdued sob, put up his hand to grasp hers.

The tears were in Nancyā€™s eyes, but her sympathy with Eppie was, naturally, divided with distress on her husbandā€™s account. She dared not speak, wondering what was going on in her husbandā€™s mind.

Godfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost all of us when we encounter an unexpected obstacle. He had been full of his own penitence and resolution to retrieve his error as far as the time was left to him; he was possessed with all-important feelings, that were to lead to a predetermined course of action which he had fixed on as the right, and he was not prepared to enter with lively appreciation into other peopleā€™s feelings counteracting his virtuous resolves. The agitation with which he spoke again was not quite unmixed with anger.

ā€œBut Iā€™ve a claim on you, Eppieā ā€”the strongest of all claims. Itā€™s my duty, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She is my own childā ā€”her mother was my wife. Iā€™ve a natural claim on her that must stand before every other.ā€

Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppieā€™s answer, from the dread lest his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt the spirit of resistance in him set free, not without a touch of parental fierceness. ā€œThen, sir,ā€ he answered, with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in him since the memorable day when his youthful hope had perishedā ā€”ā€œthen, sir, why didnā€™t you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before Iā€™d come to love her, iā€™stead oā€™ coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out oā€™ my body? God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: youā€™ve no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in.ā€

ā€œI know that, Marner. I was wrong. Iā€™ve repented of my conduct in that matter,ā€ said Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge of Silasā€™s words.

ā€œIā€™m glad to hear it, sir,ā€ said Marner, with gathering excitement; ā€œbut repentance doesnā€™t alter whatā€™s been going on for sixteen year. Your coming now and saying ā€˜Iā€™m her fatherā€™ doesnā€™t alter the feelings inside us. Itā€™s me sheā€™s been calling her father ever since she could say the word.ā€

ā€œBut I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner,ā€ said Godfrey, unexpectedly awed by the weaverā€™s direct truth-speaking. ā€œIt isnā€™t as if she was to be taken quite away from you, so that youā€™d never see her again. Sheā€™ll be very near you, and come to see you very often. Sheā€™ll feel just the same towards you.ā€

ā€œJust the same?ā€ said Marner, more bitterly than ever. ā€œHowā€™ll she feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat oā€™ the same bit, and drink oā€™ the same cup, and think oā€™ the same things from one dayā€™s end to another? Just the same? thatā€™s idle talk. Youā€™d cut us iā€™ two.ā€

Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy of Marnerā€™s simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to him that the weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was undoubtedly for Eppieā€™s welfare; and he felt himself called upon, for her sake, to assert his authority.

ā€œI should have thought, Marner,ā€ he said, severelyā ā€”ā€œI should have thought your affection for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for her good, even if it did call upon you to give up something. You ought to remember your own lifeā€™s uncertain, and sheā€™s at an age now when her lot may soon be fixed in a way very different from what it would be in her fatherā€™s home: she may marry some low workingman, and then, whatever I might do for her, I couldnā€™t make her well-off. Youā€™re putting yourself in the way of her welfare; and though Iā€™m sorry to hurt you after what youā€™ve done, and what Iā€™ve left undone, I feel now itā€™s my duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter. I want to do my duty.ā€

It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie

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