“You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?” he said, bending to look in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to be taken care of in that kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one’s self. Maggie had never felt just in the same way before. When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt Pullet seated with Mrs Tulliver in the drawing-room, and Stephen hurried away, asking leave to come again in the evening. “And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away,” said Lucy. “I want Maggie to hear your best songs.” Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be invited to go out with Lucy, probably to Park House, was much shocked at the shabbiness of her clothes, which when witnessed by the higher society of St Ogg’s, would be a discredit to the family, that demanded a strong and prompt remedy; and the consultation as to what would be most suitable to this end from among the superfluities of Mrs Pullet’s wardrobe was one that Lucy as well as Mrs Tulliver entered into with some zeal. Maggie must really have an evening dress as soon as possible, and she was about the same height as aunt Pullet. “But she’s so much broader across the shoulders than I am, it’s very ill-convenient,” said Mrs Pullet, “else she might wear that beautiful black brocade o’ mine without any alteration; and her arms are beyond everything,” added Mrs Pullet, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie’s large round arm, “She’d never get my sleeves on.” “Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress,” said Lucy. “I don’t mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black lace for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful.” “Maggie’s arms _are_ a pretty shape,” said Mrs Tulliver. “They’re like mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish she’d had _our_ family skin.” “Nonsense, aunty!” said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver’s shoulder, “you don’t understand those things. A painter would think Maggie’s complexion beautiful.” “Maybe, my dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, submissively. “You know better than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin wasn’t thought well on among respectable folks.” “No,” said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the ladies’ conversation as he sucked his lozenges. “Though there was a song about the ‘Nut-brown Maid’ too; I think she was crazy,—crazy Kate,—but I can’t justly remember.” “Oh dear, dear!” said Maggie, laughing, but impatient; “I think that will be the end of _my_ brown skin, if it is always to be talked about so much.” Chapter III. Confidential Moments