Daylight on the Wreck
IT was a clear frosty January day on which Mr Tulliver first came downstairs: the bright sun on the chestnut boughs and the roofs opposite his window had made him impatiently declare that he would be caged up no longer; he thought everywhere would be more cheery uhis sunshihan his bedroom; for he knew nothing of the bareness below, which made the flood of sunshine importunate, as if it had an unfeeling pleasure in showing the empty places and the marks where well-known objects once had been. The impression on his mind that it was but yesterday when he received the letter frore was so tinually implied in his talk, and the attempts to vey to him the idea that many weeks had passed and much had happened sihen had been so soo away by recurrent fetfulness, that even Mr Turnbull had begun to despair of preparing him to meet the facts by previous knowledge. The full sense of the present could only be imparted gradually by new experience - not by mere words which must remain weaker than the impressio by the old experiehis resolution to e downstairs was heard with trembling by the wife and children. Mrs Tulliver said Tom must not go to St Oggs at the usual hour - he must wait and see his father downstairs: and Tom plied, though with an intense inward shrinking from the painful se. The hearts of all three had been more deeply dejected than ever during the last few days. Fuest and Co. had not bought the mill: both mill and land had been knocked down to Wakem, who had beehe premises and had laid before Mr Deane and Mr Glegg, in Mrs Tullivers presence, his willio employ Mr Tulliver, in case of his recovery, as a manager of the business. This proposition had occasioned much family debating. Uncles and aunts were almost unanimously of opinion that su ht not to be rejected when there was nothing in the way but a feeling in Mr Tullivers mind, which, as her aunts nor uncles shared it, was regarded as entirely unreasonable and childish - indeed as a transferring towards Wakem of that indignation and hatred which Mr Tulliver ought properly to have directed against himself for his general quarrelsomeness and his special exhibition of it in going to law. Here portunity for Mr Tulliver to provide for his wife and daughter without any assistance from his wifes relations, and without that too evident dest into pauperism which makes it annoying to respectable people to meet the degraded member of the family by the wayside. Mr Tulliver, Mrs Glegg sidered, must be made to feel, when he came to his right mind, that he could never humble himself enough: for that had e which she had always foreseen would e of his insolen time past `to them as were the best friends hed got to look tlegg and Mr Deane were less stern in their views, but they both of them thought Tulliver had done enough harm by his hot-tempered crotchets, and ought to put them out of the question when a livelihood was offered him: Wakem showed a right feeling about the matter - he had ne against Tulliver. Tom had protested agaiertaining the proposition: he shouldnt like his father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look mean-spirited; but his mothers main distress was the utter impossibility of ever `turning Mr Tulliver round about Wakem etting him to hear reason - no, they would all have to go and live in a pigsty on purpose to spite Wakem who spoke so as nobody could be fairer. Indeed, Mrs Tullivers mind was reduced to such fusion by living in this strange medium of