ike a gypsy nor ever," said aunt Pullet, in a pitying tone;
"it's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; the boy's
fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in her way i' life to be so brown."

"She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs.
Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.

Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision. Her
first flush came from anger, which gave her a transient power of
defiance, and Tom thought she was braving it out, supported by the
recent appearance of the pudding and custard. Under this impression, he
whispered, "Oh, my! Maggie, I told you you'd catch it." He meant to be
friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her
ignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant, her heart
swelled, and getting up from her chair, she ran to her father, hid her
face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing.

"Come, come, my wench," said her father, soothingly, putting his arm
round her, "never mind; you was i' the right to cut it off if it
plagued you; give over crying; father'll take your part."

Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of these moments
when her father "took her part"; she kept them in her heart, and
thought of them long years after, when every one else said that her
father had done very ill by his children.

With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie, for the
children were told they might have their nuts and wine in the
summerhouse, since the day was so mild; and they scampered out among the
building bushes of the garden with the alacrity of small animals getting
from under a burning glass.

V

While the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occupying her
father's mind, she herself was tasting only bitterness of the present.
Childhood has not forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of
out-lived sorrow.

The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of having
Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to Garum Firs,
where she would hear uncle Pullet's musical box, had been marred as
early as eleven o'clock by the advent of the hairdresser from Saint
Ogg's, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he
had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after another and saying,
"see here! tut, tut, tut!" in a tone of mingled disgust and pity, which
to Maggie's imagination was equivalent to the strongest e