The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (best beach reads of all time .txt) 📕

too; but I was not sure that you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of trouble since then, and I think that makes one think more of what happened before the trouble came.”

“I can’t believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought of you,” said Philip, timidly. “Do you know, when I was away, I made a picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you said you would not forget me.”

Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it. Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks hanging down behind her ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy eyes. It was a watercolour sketch, of real merit as a portrait.

“Oh dear,” said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, “what a queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that way, in that pink frock. I really was like a gypsy. I dare say I am now,” she added, after a little pause; “am I like what you expected me to be?”

The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her eyes and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said quietly, “No, Maggie.”

The light died out a little from Maggie’s face, and there was a slight trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn away her head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said slowly:

“You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be.”

“Am I?” said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to this new idea. Girls are so accustomed to think of dress as the main ground of vanity, that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie had thought more of abandoning all care for adornment than of renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed from among the fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollow almost surrounded by an amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them had brightened, Maggie’s face had lost its glow.

She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip again, she said in a serious, sad voice:

“I wish we could have been friends⁠—I mean, if it would have been good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in everything; I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little. The old books went; and Tom is different, and my father. It is like death. I must part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And I must part with you; we must never take any notice of each other again. That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to let you know that Tom and I can’t do as we like about such things, and that if I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it is not out of envy or pride⁠—or⁠—or any bad feeling.”

Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on, and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of pain on Philip’s face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.

“I know; I see all that you mean,” he said, in a voice that had become feebler from discouragement; “I know what there is to keep us apart on both sides. But it is not right, Maggie⁠—don’t you be angry with me, I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts⁠—it is not right to sacrifice everything to other people’s unreasonable feelings. I would give up a great deal for my father; but I would not give up a friendship or⁠—or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish of his that I didn’t recognise as right.”

“I don’t know,” said Maggie, musingly. “Often, when I have been angry and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it was an evil state of mind. I’m quite sure that whatever I might do, I should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for myself, rather than have made my father’s life harder to him.”

“But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other sometimes?” said Philip. He was going to say something else, but checked himself.

“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t like it. Don’t ask me why, or anything about it,” said Maggie, in a distressed tone. “My father feels so strongly about some things. He is not at all happy.”

“No more am I,” said Philip, impetuously; “I am not happy.”

“Why?” said Maggie, gently. “At least⁠—I ought not to ask⁠—but I’m very, very sorry.”

Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and bushes in silence. After that last word of Philip’s, Maggie could not bear to insist immediately on their parting.

“I’ve been