y, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She is my
own child--her mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her that
must stand before every other."

Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, on the
contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppie'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. "Then,
sir," he answered, with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in
him since the memorable day when his youthful hope had perished--"then,
sir, why didn't you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I'd
come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now, when you
might as well take the heart out o' my body? God gave her to me
because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine:
you've no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it
falls to them as take it in."

"I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I've repented of my conduct in
that matter," said Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge of
Silas's words.

"I'm glad to hear it, sir," said Marner, with gathering excitement;
"but repentance doesn't alter what's been going on for sixteen year.
Your coming now and saying "I'm her father" doesn't alter the feelings
inside us. It's me she's been calling her father ever since she could
say the word."

"But I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner," said
Godfrey, unexpectedly awed by the weaver's direct truth-speaking. "It
isn't as if she was to be taken quite away from you, so that you'd
never see her again. She'll be very near you, and come to see you very
often. She'll feel just the same towards you."

"Just the same?" said Marner, more bitterly than ever. "How'll she
feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat o' the same bit,
and drink o' the same cup, and think o' the same things from one day's
end to another? Just the same? that's idle talk. You'd cut us i' two."

Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy of Marner'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 Eppie's welfare; and he felt himself called upon, for
her sake, to assert his authority.

"I should have thought, Marner," he said,