what Mr. and
Mrs. Tulliver were talking about as they sat by the bright fire in
the left-hand parlor on that very afternoon I have been dreaming
of.

If, in your interpretation of this passage, a sensitive imagination
free, but controlled by vital thought and intelligent feeling, has found
in trained instruments a lucid channel for expression, then, at the
close of your reading, _we_, your auditors, shall find our arms really
benumbed from pressing our elbows on the arms of our chairs as we dream
with you that we are standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote
Mill--the Mill on the Floss, which we find on awakening is but the title
and setting of a great author's great story.

We turn now to the second element of Narration--the _characters_. The
setting we have just analyzed has introduced us to the main characters
of a great story. Our interest is already awake to the little girl who
has been watching with us the unresting wheel of the mill. Why not take
Maggie Tulliver for our character study? To follow Maggie but a little
way is to find Tom. This is well for us, because we need to study both
types. Let us read from the chapter called "Tom Comes Home" in the life
of the boy and girl.

TOM COMES HOME

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 spoiled
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