In this particular however, Mrs Glegg did her sister Bessy some injustice, for Mrs Tulliver had really made great efforts to induce Maggie to wear a leghorn bonnet and a dyed silk frock made out of her aunt Glegg's but the results had been such1 that Mrs Tulliver was obliged to bury them in her maternal bosom; for Maggie, declaring that the frock smelt of nasty dye, had taken an opportunity of basting it together with the roast beef the first Sunday she wore it, and finding this scheme answer, she had subsequently pumped on the bonnet with its green ribbons so as to give it a general resemblance to a sage cheese garnished with withered lettuces.I must urge in excuse for Maggie that Tom had laughed at her in the bonnet and said she looked like an old Judy.Aunt Pullet, too, made presents of clothes, but these were always new and pretty enough to please Maggie as well as her mother.Of all her sisters Mrs Tulliver certainly preferred her sister Pullet, not without a return of preference; but Mrs Pullet was sorry Bessy had those naughty awkward children; she would do the best she could by them, but it was a pity they weren't as good and as pretty as sister Deane's child.Maggie and Tom, on their part, thought their aunt Pullet tolerable chiefly because she was not their aunt Glegg.Tom always declined to go more than once during his holidays to see either of them: both his uncles tipped him that once, of course, but at his aunt Pullet's there were a great many toads to pelt in the cellar area, so that he preferred the visit to her.Maggie shuddered at the toads and dreamed of them horribly, but she liked her uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box.Still, it was agreed by the sisters in Mrs Tulliver's absence that the Tulliver blood did not mix well with the Dodson blood, that, in fact, poor Bessy's children were Tullivers and that Tom, notwithstanding he had the Dodson complexion, was likely to be as `contrairy' as his father.As for Maggie, she was the picture of her aunt Moss, Mr Tulliver's sister, a large-boned woman who had married as poorly as could be, had no china, and had a husband who had much ado to pay his rent.But when Mrs Pullet was alone with Mrs Tulliver upstairs, the remarks were naturally to the disadvantage of Mrs Glegg, and they agreed in confidence that there was no knowing what sort of fright sister Jane would come out next.But their tête-a-tête was curtailed by the appearance of Mrs Deane with little Lucy, and Mrs Tulliver had to look on with a silent pang while Lucy's blond curls were adjusted.It was quite unaccountable that Mrs Deane, the thinnest and sallowest of all the Miss Dodsons, should have had this child who might have been taken for Mrs Tulliver's any day.And Maggie always looked twice as dark as usual when she was by the side of Lucy.
She did to-day, when she and Tom came in from the garden with their father and their uncle Glegg.Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother's knee.Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous and to superficial eyes was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie, though a connoisseur might have seen `points'
in her which had a higher promise for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness:
it was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten.Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed: everything about her was neat - her little round neck with the row of coral beads, her little straight nose, not at all snubby, her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match her hazel eyes which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a year older.
Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight.She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any larger than children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like Lucy with a little crown on her head and a little sceptre in her hand...only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy's form.
`O Lucy,' she burst out, after kissing her, `You'll stay with Tom and me, won't you? O kiss her, Tom.'
Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her - no - he came up to her with Maggie because it seemed easier on the whole than saying, how do you do to all those aunts and uncles: he stood looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing awkward air and semismile which are common to shy boys when in company - very much as if they had come into the world by mistake and found it in a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing.
`Heyday!' said aunt Glegg with loud emphasis, `do little boys and gells come into a room without taking notice o'their uncles and aunts? That wasn't the way when I was a little gell.'
`Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears,' said Mrs Tulliver, looking anxious and melancholy.She wanted to whisper to Maggie a command to go and have her hair brushed.
`Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good children, are you?'
said aunt Glegg, in the same loud emphatic way, as she took their hands, hurting them with her large rings and kissing their cheeks much against their desire.`Look up, Tom, look up.Boys as go to boarding-schools should hold their heads up.Look at me, now.' Tom declined that pleasure, apparently, for he tried to draw his hand away.`Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on your shoulder.'
Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud emphatic way, as if she considered them deaf or perhaps rather idiotic: it was a means, she thought, of making them feel that they were accountable creatures, and might be a salutary check on naughty tendencies.Bessy's children were so spoiled -they'd need have somebody to make them feel their duty.
