 till night, denying herself to all
visitors, till Mr. Glegg brought from Mr. Deane the news of Stephen's letter.
Then Mrs. Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground - then she laid aside
Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs. Pullet could do nothing but
shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of
funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that
there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs. Pullet could never enter St Ogg's
again, because »acquaintances« knew of it all, - Mrs. Glegg only hoped that Mrs.
Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own
niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person!
    Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in
proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other
immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake
him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was
painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed
through years by his own eyes which gave no warning of their imperfection, that
Maggie's nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil
tendencies to be safely treated with leniency: he would act on that
demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him.
Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature,
and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of
polish: if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the
responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had
arisen in Tom a repulsion towards Maggie that derived its very intensity from
their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers
together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common
sorrow: the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch
of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own - a nature
in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly
deep dye of personal pride. Mrs. Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished
- she was not a woman to deny that - she knew what conduct was; but punished in
proportion to the misdeeds proved against
