 Tom's
freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if the words would
burst from her, »O Tom, he will lose the mill and the land, and everything; he
will have nothing left.«
    Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before he turned pale,
and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa again, looking
vaguely out of the opposite window.
    Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind. His father had always
ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful, confident air of a
man who has plenty of property to fall back upon. Tom had never dreamed that his
father would »fail;« that was a form of misfortune which he had always heard
spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace was an idea that he could not
associate with any of his relations, least of all with his father. A proud sense
of family respectability was part of the very air Tom had been born and brought
up in. He knew there were people in St Ogg's who made a show without money to
support it, and he had always heard such people spoken of by his own friends
with contempt and reprobation. He had a strong belief, which was a life-long
habit, and required no definite evidence to rest on, that his father could spend
a great deal of money if he chose; and since his education at Mr. Stelling's had
given him a more expensive view of life, he had often thought that when he got
older he would make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle,
and other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any of
his contemporaries at St Ogg's, who might consider themselves a grade above him
in society, because their fathers were professional men, or had large oil-mills.
As to the prognostics and headshaking of his aunts and uncles, they had never
produced the least effect on him, except to make him think that aunts and uncles
were disagreeable society: he had heard them find fault in much the same way as
long as he could remember. His father knew better than they did.
    The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had been
hitherto only the reproduction, in changed forms, of the boyish dreams in which
he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with a violent shock.
    Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence. There was
