Mr Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said: “Why, no, perhaps not, Tom; but then he’d ha’ destroyed the note, you know. We must look for the note. What makes you think it ’ud be against his will?” “Why,” said Tom, colouring, but trying to speak firmly, in spite of a boyish tremor, “I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the fire together, and no one else was in the room——” Tom hesitated a little, and then went on. “He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said: ‘I’ve always been good to my sister, though she married against my will, and I’ve lent Moss money; but I shall never think of distressing him to pay it; I’d rather lose it. My children must not mind being the poorer for that.’ And now my father’s ill, and not able to speak for himself, I shouldn’t like anything to be done contrary to what he said to me.” “Well, but then, my boy,” said Uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led him to enter into Tom’s wish, but who could not at once shake off his habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities, or alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference in a man’s property, “we should have to make away wi’ the note, you know, if we’re to guard against what may happen, supposing your father’s made bankrupt——” “Mr Glegg,” interrupted his wife, severely, “mind what you’re saying. You’re putting yourself very forrard in other folks’s business. If you speak rash, don’t say it was my fault.” “That’s such a thing as I never heared of before,” said uncle Pullet, who had been making haste with his lozenge in order to express his amazement,—“making away with a note! I should think anybody could set the constable on you for it.” “Well, but,” said Mrs Tulliver, “if the note’s worth all that money, why can’t we pay it away, and save my things from going away? We’ve no call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your father ’ud be angry when he gets well.” Mrs Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was straining her mind after original ideas on the subject. “Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don’t understand these things,” said uncle Glegg. “There’s no way o’ making it safe for Mr and Mrs Moss but destroying the note.” “Then I hope you’ll help me do it, uncle,” said Tom, earnestly. “If my father shouldn’t get well, I should be very unhappy to think anything had been done against his will that I could hinder. And I’m sure he meant me to remember what he said that evening. I ought to obey my father’s wish about his property.”