id Mrs. Cass, taking
Eppie's hand, and looking in her face with an expression of anxious
interest and admiration. Nancy herself was pale and tremulous.

Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs. Cass, went to stand
against Silas, opposite to them.

"Well, Marner," said Godfrey, trying to speak with perfect firmness,
"it's a great comfort to me to see you with your money again, that
you've been deprived of so many years. It was one of my family did you
the wrong--the more grief to me--and I feel bound to make up to you for
it in every way. Whatever I can do for you will be nothing but paying
a debt, even if I looked no further than the robbery. But there are
other things I'm beholden--shall be beholden to you for, Marner."

Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed between him and his wife
that the subject of his fatherhood should be approached very carefully,
and that, if possible, the disclosure should be reserved for the
future, so that it might be made to Eppie gradually. Nancy had urged
this, because she felt strongly the painful light in which Eppie must
inevitably see the relation between her father and mother.

Silas, always ill at ease when he was being spoken to by "betters",
such as Mr. Cass--tall, powerful, florid men, seen chiefly on
horseback--answered with some constraint--

"Sir, I've a deal to thank you for a'ready. As for the robbery, I
count it no loss to me. And if I did, you couldn't help it: you aren't
answerable for it."

"You may look at it in that way, Marner, but I never can; and I hope
you'll let me act according to my own feeling of what's just. I know
you're easily contented: you've been a hard-working man all your life."

"Yes, sir, yes," said Marner, meditatively. "I should ha' been bad off
without my work: it was what I held by when everything else was gone
from me."

"Ah," said Godfrey, applying Marner's words simply to his bodily wants,
"it was a good trade for you in this country, because there's been a
great deal of linen-weaving to be done. But you're getting rather past
such close work, Marner: it's time you laid by and had some rest. You
look a good deal pulled down, though you're not an old man, _are_ you?"

"Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir," said Silas.

"Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer--look at old Macey! And that
money on the table, after all, is but little. It won't go far either
way--whether it's put out to interest, or you were to l