But though the letter could not shake Mrs Glegg’s principles, it made the family breach much more difficult to mend; and as to the effect it produced on Mrs Glegg’s opinion of Mr Tulliver, she begged to be understood from that time forth that she had nothing whatever to say about him; his state of mind, apparently, was too corrupt for her to contemplate it for a moment. It was not until the evening before Tom went to school, at the beginning of August, that Mrs Glegg paid a visit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig all the while, and showing her displeasure by markedly abstaining from all advice and criticism; for, as she observed to her sister Deane, “Bessy must bear the consequence o’ having such a husband, though I’m sorry for her,” and Mrs Deane agreed that Bessy was pitiable. That evening Tom observed to Maggie: “Oh my! Maggie, aunt Glegg’s beginning to come again; I’m glad I’m going to school. _You’ll_ catch it all now!” Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought of Tom’s going away from her, that this playful exultation of his seemed very unkind, and she cried herself to sleep that night. Mr Tulliver’s prompt procedure entailed on him further promptitude in finding the convenient person who was desirous of lending five hundred pounds on bond. “It must be no client of Wakem’s,” he said to himself; and yet at the end of a fortnight it turned out to the contrary; not because Mr Tulliver’s will was feeble, but because external fact was stronger. Wakem’s client was the only convenient person to be found. Mr Tulliver had a destiny as well as Œdipus, and in this case he might plead, like Œdipus, that his deed was inflicted on him rather than committed by him. BOOK SECOND. SCHOOL-TIME. Chapter I. Tom’s “First Half”