“Why don’t your children come in, Bessy?” said Mrs Pullet, at the mention of Maggie. “They should hear what their aunts and uncles have got to say; and Maggie,—when it’s me as have paid for half her schooling, she ought to think more of her aunt Pullet than of aunt Moss. I may go off sudden when I get home to-day; there’s no telling.” “If I’d had _my_ way,” said Mrs Glegg, “the children ’ud ha’ been in the room from the first. It’s time they knew who they’ve to look to, and it’s right as _somebody_ should talk to ’em, and let ’em know their condition i’ life, and what they’re come down to, and make ’em feel as they’ve got to suffer for their father’s faults.” “Well, I’ll go and fetch ’em, sister,” said Mrs Tulliver, resignedly. She was quite crushed now, and thought of the treasures in the storeroom with no other feeling than blank despair. She went upstairs to fetch Tom and Maggie, who were both in their father’s room, and was on her way down again, when the sight of the storeroom door suggested a new thought to her. She went toward it, and left the children to go down by themselves. The aunts and uncles appeared to have been in warm discussion when the brother and sister entered,—both with shrinking reluctance; for though Tom, with a practical sagacity which had been roused into activity by the strong stimulus of the new emotions he had undergone since yesterday, had been turning over in his mind a plan which he meant to propose to one of his aunts or uncles, he felt by no means amicably toward them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as he would have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which was but just endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie, she was peculiarly depressed this morning; she had been called up, after brief rest, at three o’clock, and had that strange dreamy weariness which comes from watching in a sick-room through the chill hours of early twilight and breaking day,—in which the outside day-light life seems to have no importance, and to be a mere margin to the hours in the darkened chamber. Their entrance interrupted the conversation. The shaking of hands was a melancholy and silent ceremony, till uncle Pullet observed, as Tom approached him: “Well, young sir, we’ve been talking as we should want your pen and ink; you can write rarely now, after all your schooling, I should think.” “Ay, ay,” said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he meant to be kind, “we must look to see the good of all this schooling, as your father’s sunk so much money in, now,— ‘When land is gone and money’s spent, Then learning is most excellent.’ Now’s the time, Tom, to let us see the good o’ your learning. Let us see whether you can do better than I can, as have made my fortin without it. But I began wi’ doing with little, you see; I could live on a basin o’ porridge and a crust o’ bread-and-cheese. But I doubt high living and high learning ’ull make it harder for you, young man, nor it was for me.”