Mrs Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, “Hallo! Yap—what! are you there?” Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows,—a physiognomy in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character to boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie’s phiz, which Nature seemed to have moulded and coloured with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features. “Maggie,” said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlour had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, “you don’t know what I’ve got in _my_ pockets,” nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery. “No,” said Maggie. “How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cobnuts?” Maggie’s heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was “no good” playing with _her_ at those games, she played so badly. “Marls! no; I’ve swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see here!” He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket. “What is it?” said Maggie, in a whisper. “I can see nothing but a bit of yellow.” “Why, it’s—a—new—guess, Maggie!” “Oh, I _can’t_ guess, Tom,” said Maggie, impatiently. “Don’t be a spitfire, else I won’t tell you,” said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined. “No, Tom,” said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. “I’m not cross, Tom; it was only because I can’t bear guessing. _Please_ be good to me.”