Dr Kenn smiled. “I hope I’m going to have you as a permanent parishioner now, Miss Tulliver; am I? You have been at a distance from us hitherto.” “I have been a teacher in a school, and I’m going into another situation of the same kind very soon.” “Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all in this neighbourhood, I believe.” “Oh, _I must go_,” said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr Kenn with an expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those three words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which will sometimes happen even between people who meet quite transiently,—on a mile’s journey, perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood. Dr Kenn’s ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief confidence of Maggie’s was charged with meaning. “I understand,” he said; “you feel it right to go. But that will not prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing you better, if I can be of any service to you.” He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away. “She has some trouble or other at heart,” he thought. “Poor child! she looks as if she might turn out to be one of ‘The souls by nature pitched too high, By suffering plunged too low.’ “There’s something wonderfully honest in those beautiful eyes.” It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections an excessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were not absent now, any more than when she was instructing the gypsies with a view toward achieving a royal position among them, was not more elated on a day when she had had the tribute of so many looks and smiles, together with that satisfactory consciousness which had necessarily come from being taken before Lucy’s chevalglass, and made to look at the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the night of her massy hair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for the moment had forgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty. If that state of mind could have lasted, her choice would have been to have Stephen Guest at her feet, offering her a life filled with all luxuries, with daily incense of adoration near and distant, and with all possibilities of culture at her command. But there were things in her stronger than vanity,—passion and affection, and long, deep memories of early discipline and effort, of early claims on her love and pity; and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and mingled imperceptibly with that wider current which was at its highest force today, under the double urgency of the events and inward impulses brought by the last week.