ouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad--I should be sorry for him
to be a raskill--but a sort of engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer
and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all
profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool.
They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the
law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one
cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him."

Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde, comely woman, nearly
forty years old.

"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best. _I've_ no objections. But if Tom's
to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and
mend him, else he might as well have calico as linen. And then, when the
box is goin' backwards and forwards, I could send the lad a cake, or a
pork-pie, or an apple."

"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if
other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "Riley's as likely a man as any
to know o' some school; he's had schooling himself, an' goes about to
all sorts o' places--arbitratin' and vallyin', and that."

So a day or two later Mr. Riley, the auctioneer, came to Dorlcote Mill,
and stayed the night, the better that Mr. Tulliver, who was slow at
coming to a point, might consult him on the all-important subject of his
boy.

"You see, I want to put him to a new school at midsummer," said Mr.
Tulliver, when the topic had been reached. "I want to send him to a
downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him. I don't
mean Tom to be a miller an' farmer. I see no fun i' that. I shall give
Tom an eddication and put him to a business as he may make a nest for
himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine."

At the sound of her brother's name, Maggie, the second and only other
child of the Tullivers, who was seated on a low stool close by the fire,
with a large book open on her lap, looked up eagerly. Tom, it appeared,
was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors. This was not to
be borne, and Maggie jumped up from her stool, and going up between her
father's knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice, "Father,
Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."

Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched.

"What! They mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" he said, looking at Maggie
with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, "She
understands what one