they didn't come
into my head, you know? Oh, he will be so angry with me, I know he will,
and so sorry about his rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, 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 doesn't like 'em. He made
the rabbits' ears 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.

II

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 toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he
promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing tomorrow
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,--face in which it seems impossible to
see anything but boyhoo