“I wish you’d brought me the money to look at, Tom,” he said, fingering the sovereigns on the table; “I should ha’ felt surer.” “You shall see it to-morrow, father,” said Tom. “My uncle Deane has appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the Golden Lion, and he has ordered a dinner for them at two o’clock. My uncle Glegg and he will both be there. It was advertised in the ‘Messenger’ on Saturday.” “Then Wakem knows on’t!” said Mr Tulliver, his eye kindling with triumphant fire. “Ah!” he went on, with a long-drawn guttural enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the only luxury he had left himself, and tapping it with something of his old air of defiance. “I’ll get from under _his_ thumb now, though I _must_ leave the old mill. I thought I could ha’ held out to die here—but I can’t——we’ve got a glass o’ nothing in the house, have we, Bessy?” “Yes,” said Mrs Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of keys, “there’s some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was ill.” “Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak.” “Tom, my lad,” he said, in a stronger voice, when he had taken some brandy-and-water, “you shall make a speech to ’em. I’ll tell ’em it’s you as got the best part o’ the money. They’ll see I’m honest at last, and ha’ got an honest son. Ah! Wakem ’ud be fine and glad to have a son like mine,—a fine straight fellow,—i’stead o’ that poor crooked creatur! You’ll prosper i’ the world, my lad; you’ll maybe see the day when Wakem and his son ’ull be a round or two below you. You’ll like enough be ta’en into partnership, as your uncle Deane was before you,—you’re in the right way for’t; and then there’s nothing to hinder your getting rich. And if ever you’re rich enough—mind this—try and get th’ old mill again.” Mr Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind, which had so long been the home of nothing but bitter discontent and foreboding, suddenly filled, by the magic of joy, with visions of good fortune. But some subtle influence prevented him from foreseeing the good fortune as happening to himself. “Shake hands wi’ me, my lad,” he said, suddenly putting out his hand. “It’s a great thing when a man can be proud as he’s got a good son. I’ve had _that_ luck.” Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and Maggie couldn’t help forgetting her own grievances. Tom _was_ good; and in the sweet humility that springs in us all in moments of true admiration and gratitude, she felt that the faults he had to pardon in her had never been redeemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy this evening that, for the first time, she seemed to be thrown into the background in her father’s mind.