PART TWO


CHAPTER XVI

It was a bright autumn Sunday, sixteen years after Silas Marner had
found his new treasure on the hearth. The bells of the old Raveloe
church were ringing the cheerful peal which told that the morning
service was ended; and out of the arched doorway in the tower came
slowly, retarded by friendly greetings and questions, the richer
parishioners who had chosen this bright Sunday morning as eligible
for church-going. It was the rural fashion of that time for the
more important members of the congregation to depart first, while
their humbler neighbours waited and looked on, stroking their bent
heads or dropping their curtsies to any large ratepayer who turned
to notice them.

Foremost among these advancing groups of well-clad people, there are
some whom we shall recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his
hand on them all. The tall blond man of forty is not much changed
in feature from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only
fuller in flesh, and has only lost the indefinable look of youth--
a loss which is marked even when the eye is undulled and the
wrinkles are not yet come. Perhaps the pretty woman, not much
younger than he, who is leaning on his arm, is more changed than her
husband: the lovely bloom that used to be always on her cheek now
comes but fitfully, with the fresh morning air or with some strong
surprise; yet to all who love human faces best for what they tell of
human experience, Nancy's beauty has a heightened interest. Often
the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an
ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of
the fruit. But the years have not been so cruel to Nancy. The firm
yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance of the brown eyes,
speak now of a nature that has been tested and has kept its highest
qualities; and even the costume, with its dainty neatness and
purity, has more significance now the coquetries of youth can have
nothing to do with it.

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title has died away from
Raveloe lips since the old Squire was gathered to his fathers and
his inheritance was divided) have turned round to look for the tall
aged man and the plainly dressed woman who are a little behind--
Nancy having observed that they must wait for "father and
Priscilla"--and now they all turn into a narrower path leading
across the churchyard to a small gate opposite the Red House. We
will not follow them now; for may there not be some others in this
departing congregation whom we should like to see again--some of
those who are not likely to be handsomely clad, and whom we may not
recognize so easily as the master and mistress of the Red House?

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. His large brown eyes
seem to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that
have been short-sighted in early life, and they have a less vague, a
more answering gaze; but in everything else one sees signs of a
frame much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen years. The
weaver's bent shoulders and white hair give him almost the look of
advanced age, though he is not more than five-and-fifty; but there
is the freshest blossom of youth close by his side--a blonde
dimpled girl of eighteen, who has vainly tried to chastise her curly
auburn hair into smoothness under her brown bonnet: the hair ripples
as obstinately as a brooklet under the March breeze, and the little
ringlets burst away from the restraining comb behind and show
themselves below the bonnet-crown. Eppie cannot help being rather
vexed about her hair, for there is no other girl in Raveloe who has
hair at all like it, and she thinks hair ought to be smooth. She
does not like to be blameworthy even in small things: you see how
neatly her prayer-book is folded in her spotted handkerchief.

That good-looking young fellow, in a new fustian suit, who walks
behind her, is not quite sure upon the question of hair in the
abstract, when Eppie puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps
straight hair is the best in general, but he doesn't want Eppie's
hair to be different. She surely divines that there is some one
behind her who is thinking about her very particularly, and
mustering courage to come to her side as soon as they are out in the
lane, else why should she look rather shy, and take care not to turn
away her head from her father Silas, to whom she keeps murmuring
little sentences as to who was at church and who was not at church,
and how pretty the red mountain-ash is over the Rectory wall?

"I wish _we_ had a little garden, father, with double daisies in,
like Mrs. Winthrop's," said Eppie, when they were out in the lane;
"only they say it 'ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh
soil--and you couldn't do that, could you, father? Anyhow, I
shouldn't like you to do it, for it 'ud be too hard work for you."

"Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o' garden: these long
evenings, I could work at taking in a little bit o' the waste, just
enough for a root or two o' flowers for you; and again, i' the
morning, I could have a turn wi' the spade before I sat down to the
loom. Why didn't you tell me before as you wanted a bit o'
garden?"

"_I_ can dig it for you, Master Marner," said the young man in
fustian, who was now by Eppie's side, entering into the conversation
without the trouble of formalities. "It'll be play to me after
I've done my day's work, or any odd bits o' time when the work's
slack. And I'll bring you some soil from Mr. Cass's garden--he'll
let me, and willing."

"Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?" said Silas; "I wasn't aware
of you; for when Eppie's talking o' things, I see nothing but what
she's a-saying. Well, if you could help me with the digging, we
might get her a bit o' garden all the sooner."

"Then, if you think well and good," said Aaron, "I'll come to the
Stone-pits this afternoon, and we'll settle what land's to be taken
in, and I'll get up an hour earlier i' the morning, and begin on
it."

"But not if you don't promise me not to work at the hard digging,
father," said Eppie. "For I shouldn't ha' said anything about
it," she added, half-bashfully, half-roguishly, "only
Mrs. Winthrop said as Aaron 'ud be so good, and --"

"And you might ha' known it without mother telling you," said
Aaron. "And Master Marner knows too, I hope, as I'm able and
willing to do a turn o' work for him, and he won't do me the
unkindness to anyways take it out o' my hands."

"There, now, father, you won't work in it till it's all easy,"
said Eppie, "and you and me can mark out the beds, and make holes
and plant the roots. It'll be a deal livelier at the Stone-pits
when we've got some flowers, for I always think the flowers can see
us and know what we're talking about. And I'll have a bit o'
rosemary, and bergamot, and thyme, because they're so
sweet-smelling; but there's no lavender only in the gentlefolks'
gardens, I think."

"That's no reason why you shouldn't have some," said Aaron, "for
I can bring you slips of anything; I'm forced to cut no end of 'em
when I'm gardening, and throw 'em away mostly. There's a big bed o'
lavender at the Red House: the missis is very fond of it."

"Well," said Silas, gravely, "so as you don't make free for us,
or ask for anything as is worth much at the Red House: for
Mr. Cass's been so good to us, and built us up the new end o' the
cottage, and given us beds and things, as I couldn't abide to be
imposin' for garden-stuff or anything else."

"No, no, there's no imposin'," said Aaron; "there's never a
garden in all the parish but what there's endless waste in it for
want o' somebody as could use everything up. It's what I think to
myself sometimes, as there need nobody run short o' victuals if the
land was made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what
could find its way to a mouth. It sets one thinking o' that--
gardening does. But I must go back now, else mother 'ull be in
trouble as I aren't there."

"Bring her with you this afternoon, Aaron," said Eppie; "I
shouldn't like to fix about the garden, and her not know everything
from the first--should _you_, father?"

"Aye, bring her if you can, Aaron," said Silas; "she's sure to
have a word to say as'll help us to set things on their right end."

Aaron turned back up the village, while Silas and Eppie went on up
the lonely sheltered lane.

"O daddy!" she began, when they were in privacy, clasping and
squeezing Silas's arm, and skipping round to give him an energetic
kiss. "My little old daddy! I'm so glad. I don't think I shall
want anything else when we've got a little garden; and I knew Aaron
would dig it for us," she went on with roguish triumph--"I knew
that very well."

"You're a deep little puss, you are," said Silas, with the mild
passive happiness of love-crowned age in his face; "but you'll make
yourself fine and beholden to Aaron."

"Oh, no, I shan't," said Eppie, laughing and frisking; "he likes
it."

"Come, come, let me carry your prayer-book, else you'll be dropping
it, jumping i' that way."

Eppie was now aware that her behaviour was under observation, but it
was only the observation of a friendly donkey, browsing with a log
fastened to his foot--a meek donkey, not scornfully critical of
human trivialities, but thankful to share in them, if possible, by
getting his nose scratched; and Eppie did not fail to gratify him
with her usual notice, though it was attended with the inconvenience
of his following them, painfully, up to the very door of their home.

But the sound of a sharp bark inside, as Eppie put the key in the
door, modified the donkey's views, and he limped away again without
bidding. The sharp bark was the sign of an excited welcome that was
awaiting them from a knowing brown terrier, who, after dancing at
their legs in a hysterical manner, rushed with a worrying noise at a
tortoise-shell kitten under the loom, and then rushed back with a
sharp bark again, as much as to say, "I have done my duty by this
feeble creature, you perceive"; while the lady-mother of the kitten
sat sunning her white bosom in the window, and looked round with a
sleepy air of expecting caresses, though she was not going to take
any trouble for them.

The presence of this happy animal life was not the only change which
had come over the interior of the stone cottage. There was no bed
now in the living-room, and the small space was well filled with
decent furniture, all bright and clean enough to satisfy Dolly
Winthrop's eye. The oaken table and three-cornered oaken chair were
hardly what was likely to be seen in so poor a cottage: they had
come, with the beds and other things, from the Red House; for
Mr. Godfrey Cass, as every one said in the village, did very kindly
by the weaver; and it was nothing but right a man should be looked
on and helped by those who could afford it, when he had brought up
an orphan child, and been father and mother to her--and had lost
his money too, so as he had nothing but what he worked for week by
week, and when the weaving was going down too--for there was less
and less flax spun--and Master Marner was none so young. Nobody
was jealous of the weaver, for he was regarded as an exceptional
person, whose claims on neighbourly help were not to be matched in
Raveloe. Any superstition that remained concerning him had taken an
entirely new colour; and Mr. Macey, now a very feeble old man of
fourscore and six, never seen except in his chimney-corner or
sitting in the sunshine at his door-sill, was of opinion that when a
man had done what Silas had done by an orphan child, it was a sign
that his money would come to light again, or leastwise that the
robber would be made to answer for it--for, as Mr. Macey observed
of himself, his faculties were as strong as ever.

Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with a satisfied gaze as she
spread the clean cloth, and set on it the potato-pie, warmed up
slowly in a safe Sunday fashion, by being put into a dry pot over a
slowly-dying fire, as the best substitute for an oven. For Silas
would not consent to have a grate and oven added to his
conveniences: he loved the old brick hearth as he had loved his
brown pot--and was it not there when he had found Eppie? The gods
of the hearth exist for us still; and let all new faith be tolerant
of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own roots.

Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual, soon laying down his
knife and fork, and watching half-abstractedly Eppie's play with
Snap and the cat, by which her own dining was made rather a lengthy
business. Yet it was a sight that might well arrest wandering
thoughts: Eppie, with the rippling radiance of her hair and the
whiteness of her rounded chin and throat set off by the dark-blue
cotton gown, laughing merrily as the kitten held on with her four
claws to one shoulder, like a design for a jug-handle, while Snap on
the right hand and Puss on the other put up their paws towards a
morsel which she held out of the reach of both--Snap occasionally
desisting in order to remonstrate with the cat by a cogent worrying
growl on the greediness and futility of her conduct; till Eppie
relented, caressed them both, and divided the morsel between them.

But at last Eppie, glancing at the clock, checked the play, and
said, "O daddy, you're wanting to go into the sunshine to smoke
your pipe. But I must clear away first, so as the house may be tidy
when godmother comes. I'll make haste--I won't be long."

Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during the last two years,
having been strongly urged to it by the sages of Raveloe, as a
practice "good for the fits"; and this advice was sanctioned by
Dr. Kimble, on the ground that it was as well to try what could do
no harm--a principle which was made to answer for a great deal of
work in that gentleman's medical practice. Silas did not highly
enjoy smoking, and often wondered how his neighbours could be so
fond of it; but a humble sort of acquiescence in what was held to be
good, had become a strong habit of that new self which had been
developed in him since he had found Eppie on his hearth: it had been
the only clew his bewildered mind could hold by in cherishing this
young life that had been sent to him out of the darkness into which
his gold had departed. By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by
sharing the effect that everything produced on her, he had himself
come to appropriate the forms of custom and belief which were the
mould of Raveloe life; and as, with reawakening sensibilities,
memory also reawakened, he had begun to ponder over the elements of
his old faith, and blend them with his new impressions, till he
recovered a consciousness of unity between his past and present.
The sense of presiding goodness and the human trust which come with
all pure peace and joy, had given him a dim impression that there
had been some error, some mistake, which had thrown that dark shadow
over the days of his best years; and as it grew more and more easy
to him to open his mind to Dolly Winthrop, he gradually communicated
to her all he could describe of his early life. The communication
was necessarily a slow and difficult process, for Silas's meagre
power of explanation was not aided by any readiness of
interpretation in Dolly, whose narrow outward experience gave her no
key to strange customs, and made every novelty a source of wonder
that arrested them at every step of the narrative. It was only by
fragments, and at intervals which left Dolly time to revolve what
she had heard till it acquired some familiarity for her, that Silas
at last arrived at the climax of the sad story--the drawing of
lots, and its false testimony concerning him; and this had to be
repeated in several interviews, under new questions on her part as
to the nature of this plan for detecting the guilty and clearing the
innocent.

"And yourn's the same Bible, you're sure o' that, Master Marner--
the Bible as you brought wi' you from that country--it's the same
as what they've got at church, and what Eppie's a-learning to read
in?"

"Yes," said Silas, "every bit the same; and there's drawing o'
lots in the Bible, mind you," he added in a lower tone.

"Oh, dear, dear," said Dolly in a grieved voice, as if she were
hearing an unfavourable report of a sick man's case. She was silent
for some minutes; at last she said--

"There's wise folks, happen, as know how it all is; the parson
knows, I'll be bound; but it takes big words to tell them things,
and such as poor folks can't make much out on. I can never rightly
know the meaning o' what I hear at church, only a bit here and
there, but I know it's good words--I do. But what lies upo' your
mind--it's this, Master Marner: as, if Them above had done the
right thing by you, They'd never ha' let you be turned out for a
wicked thief when you was innicent."

"Ah!" said Silas, who had now come to understand Dolly's
phraseology, "that was what fell on me like as if it had been
red-hot iron; because, you see, there was nobody as cared for me or
clave to me above nor below. And him as I'd gone out and in wi' for
ten year and more, since when we was lads and went halves--mine
own familiar friend in whom I trusted, had lifted up his heel again'
me, and worked to ruin me."

"Eh, but he was a bad un--I can't think as there's another
such," said Dolly. "But I'm o'ercome, Master Marner; I'm like as
if I'd waked and didn't know whether it was night or morning.
I feel somehow as sure as I do when I've laid something up though I
can't justly put my hand on it, as there was a rights in what
happened to you, if one could but make it out; and you'd no call to
lose heart as you did. But we'll talk on it again; for sometimes
things come into my head when I'm leeching or poulticing, or such,
as I could never think on when I was sitting still."

Dolly was too useful a woman not to have many opportunities of
illumination of the kind she alluded to, and she was not long before
she recurred to the subject.

"Master Marner," she said, one day that she came to bring home
Eppie's washing, "I've been sore puzzled for a good bit wi' that
trouble o' yourn and the drawing o' lots; and it got twisted
back'ards and for'ards, as I didn't know which end to lay hold on.
But it come to me all clear like, that night when I was sitting up
wi' poor Bessy Fawkes, as is dead and left her children behind, God
help 'em--it come to me as clear as daylight; but whether I've got
hold on it now, or can anyways bring it to my tongue's end, that I
don't know. For I've often a deal inside me as'll never come out;
and for what you talk o' your folks in your old country niver saying
prayers by heart nor saying 'em out of a book, they must be
wonderful cliver; for if I didn't know "Our Father", and little bits
o' good words as I can carry out o' church wi' me, I might down o'
my knees every night, but nothing could I say."

"But you can mostly say something as I can make sense on,
Mrs. Winthrop," said Silas.

"Well, then, Master Marner, it come to me summat like this: I can
make nothing o' the drawing o' lots and the answer coming wrong; it
'ud mayhap take the parson to tell that, and he could only tell us
i' big words. But what come to me as clear as the daylight, it was
when I was troubling over poor Bessy Fawkes, and it allays comes
into my head when I'm sorry for folks, and feel as I can't do a
power to help 'em, not if I was to get up i' the middle o' the night--
it comes into my head as Them above has got a deal tenderer heart
nor what I've got--for I can't be anyways better nor Them as made
me; and if anything looks hard to me, it's because there's things I
don't know on; and for the matter o' that, there may be plenty o'
things I don't know on, for it's little as I know--that it is.
And so, while I was thinking o' that, you come into my mind, Master
Marner, and it all come pouring in:--if _I_ felt i' my inside what
was the right and just thing by you, and them as prayed and drawed
the lots, all but that wicked un, if _they_'d ha' done the right
thing by you if they could, isn't there Them as was at the making on
us, and knows better and has a better will? And that's all as ever
I can be sure on, and everything else is a big puzzle to me when I
think on it. For there was the fever come and took off them as were
full-growed, and left the helpless children; and there's the
breaking o' limbs; and them as 'ud do right and be sober have to
suffer by them as are contrairy--eh, there's trouble i' this
world, and there's things as we can niver make out the rights on.
And all as we've got to do is to trusten, Master Marner--to do the
right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows
so little can see a bit o' good and rights, we may be sure as
there's a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know--I feel it
i' my own inside as it must be so. And if you could but ha' gone on
trustening, Master Marner, you wouldn't ha' run away from your
fellow-creaturs and been so lone."

"Ah, but that 'ud ha' been hard," said Silas, in an under-tone;
"it 'ud ha' been hard to trusten then."

"And so it would," said Dolly, almost with compunction; "them
things are easier said nor done; and I'm partly ashamed o'
talking."

"Nay, nay," said Silas, "you're i' the right, Mrs. Winthrop--
you're i' the right. There's good i' this world--I've a feeling
o' that now; and it makes a man feel as there's a good more nor he
can see, i' spite o' the trouble and the wickedness. That drawing
o' the lots is dark; but the child was sent to me: there's dealings
with us--there's dealings."

This dialogue took place in Eppie's earlier years, when Silas had to
part with her for two hours every day, that she might learn to read
at the dame school, after he had vainly tried himself to guide her
in that first step to learning. Now that she was grown up, Silas
had often been led, in those moments of quiet outpouring which come
to people who live together in perfect love, to talk with _her_ too
of the past, and how and why he had lived a lonely man until she had
been sent to him. For it would have been impossible for him to hide
from Eppie that she was not his own child: even if the most delicate
reticence on the point could have been expected from Raveloe gossips
in her presence, her own questions about her mother could not have
been parried, as she grew up, without that complete shrouding of the
past which would have made a painful barrier between their minds.
So Eppie had long known how her mother had died on the snowy ground,
and how she herself had been found on the hearth by father Silas,
who had taken her golden curls for his lost guineas brought back to
him. The tender and peculiar love with which Silas had reared her
in almost inseparable companionship with himself, aided by the
seclusion of their dwelling, had preserved her from the lowering
influences of the village talk and habits, and had kept her mind in
that freshness which is sometimes falsely supposed to be an
invariable attribute of rusticity. Perfect love has a breath of
poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human
beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from the time
when she had followed the bright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's
hearth; so that it is not surprising if, in other things besides her
delicate prettiness, she was not quite a common village maiden, but
had a touch of refinement and fervour which came from no other
teaching than that of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling. She was
too childish and simple for her imagination to rove into questions
about her unknown father; for a long while it did not even occur to
her that she must have had a father; and the first time that the
idea of her mother having had a husband presented itself to her, was
when Silas showed her the wedding-ring which had been taken from the
wasted finger, and had been carefully preserved by him in a little
lackered box shaped like a shoe. He delivered this box into Eppie's
charge when she had grown up, and she often opened it to look at the
ring: but still she thought hardly at all about the father of whom
it was the symbol. Had she not a father very close to her, who
loved her better than any real fathers in the village seemed to love
their daughters? On the contrary, who her mother was, and how she
came to die in that forlornness, were questions that often pressed
on Eppie's mind. Her knowledge of Mrs. Winthrop, who was her
nearest friend next to Silas, made her feel that a mother must be
very precious; and she had again and again asked Silas to tell her
how her mother looked, whom she was like, and how he had found her
against the furze bush, led towards it by the little footsteps and
the outstretched arms. The furze bush was there still; and this
afternoon, when Eppie came out with Silas into the sunshine, it was
the first object that arrested her eyes and thoughts.

"Father," she said, in a tone of gentle gravity, which sometimes
came like a sadder, slower cadence across her playfulness, "we
shall take the furze bush into the garden; it'll come into the
corner, and just against it I'll put snowdrops and crocuses, 'cause
Aaron says they won't die out, but'll always get more and more."

"Ah, child," said Silas, always ready to talk when he had his pipe
in his hand, apparently enjoying the pauses more than the puffs,
"it wouldn't do to leave out the furze bush; and there's nothing
prettier, to my thinking, when it's yallow with flowers. But it's
just come into my head what we're to do for a fence--mayhap Aaron
can help us to a thought; but a fence we must have, else the donkeys
and things 'ull come and trample everything down. And fencing's
hard to be got at, by what I can make out."

"Oh, I'll tell you, daddy," said Eppie, clasping her hands
suddenly, after a minute's thought. "There's lots o' loose stones
about, some of 'em not big, and we might lay 'em atop of one
another, and make a wall. You and me could carry the smallest, and
Aaron 'ud carry the rest--I know he would."

"Eh, my precious un," said Silas, "there isn't enough stones to
go all round; and as for you carrying, why, wi' your little arms you
couldn't carry a stone no bigger than a turnip. You're dillicate
made, my dear," he added, with a tender intonation--"that's what
Mrs. Winthrop says."

"Oh, I'm stronger than you think, daddy," said Eppie; "and if
there wasn't stones enough to go all round, why they'll go part o'
the way, and then it'll be easier to get sticks and things for the
rest. See here, round the big pit, what a many stones!"

She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift one of the stones
and exhibit her strength, but she started back in surprise.

"Oh, father, just come and look here," she exclaimed--"come and
see how the water's gone down since yesterday. Why, yesterday the
pit was ever so full!"

"Well, to be sure," said Silas, coming to her side. "Why, that's
the draining they've begun on, since harvest, i' Mr. Osgood's
fields, I reckon. The foreman said to me the other day, when I
passed by 'em, "Master Marner," he said, "I shouldn't wonder if we
lay your bit o' waste as dry as a bone." It was Mr. Godfrey Cass,
he said, had gone into the draining: he'd been taking these fields
o' Mr. Osgood."

"How odd it'll seem to have the old pit dried up!" said Eppie,
turning away, and stooping to lift rather a large stone. "See,
daddy, I can carry this quite well," she said, going along with
much energy for a few steps, but presently letting it fall.

"Ah, you're fine and strong, aren't you?" said Silas, while Eppie
shook her aching arms and laughed. "Come, come, let us go and sit
down on the bank against the stile there, and have no more lifting.
You might hurt yourself, child. You'd need have somebody to work
for you--and my arm isn't over strong."

Silas uttered the last sentence slowly, as if it implied more than
met the ear; and Eppie, when they sat down on the bank, nestled
close to his side, and, taking hold caressingly of the arm that was
not over strong, held it on her lap, while Silas puffed again
dutifully at the pipe, which occupied his other arm. An ash in the
hedgerow behind made a fretted screen from the sun, and threw happy
playful shadows all about them.

"Father," said Eppie, very gently, after they had been sitting in
silence a little while, "if I was to be married, ought I to be
married with my mother's ring?"

Silas gave an almost imperceptible start, though the question fell
in with the under-current of thought in his own mind, and then said,
in a subdued tone, "Why, Eppie, have you been a-thinking on it?"

"Only this last week, father," said Eppie, ingenuously, "since
Aaron talked to me about it."

"And what did he say?" said Silas, still in the same subdued way,
as if he were anxious lest he should fall into the slightest tone
that was not for Eppie's good.

"He said he should like to be married, because he was a-going in
four-and-twenty, and had got a deal of gardening work, now
Mr. Mott's given up; and he goes twice a-week regular to Mr. Cass's,
and once to Mr. Osgood's, and they're going to take him on at the
Rectory."

"And who is it as he's wanting to marry?" said Silas, with rather
a sad smile.

"Why, me, to be sure, daddy," said Eppie, with dimpling laughter,
kissing her father's cheek; "as if he'd want to marry anybody
else!"

"And you mean to have him, do you?" said Silas.

"Yes, some time," said Eppie, "I don't know when. Everybody's
married some time, Aaron says. But I told him that wasn't true:
for, I said, look at father--he's never been married."

"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was
sent to him."

"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie, tenderly.
"That was what Aaron said--"I could never think o' taking you
away from Master Marner, Eppie." And I said, "It 'ud be no use if
you did, Aaron." And he wants us all to live together, so as you
needn't work a bit, father, only what's for your own pleasure; and
he'd be as good as a son to you--that was what he said."

"And should you like that, Eppie?" said Silas, looking at her.

"I shouldn't mind it, father," said Eppie, quite simply. "And I
should like things to be so as you needn't work much. But if it
wasn't for that, I'd sooner things didn't change. I'm very happy: I
like Aaron to be fond of me, and come and see us often, and behave
pretty to you--he always _does_ behave pretty to you, doesn't he,
father?"

"Yes, child, nobody could behave better," said Silas,
emphatically. "He's his mother's lad."

"But I don't want any change," said Eppie. "I should like to go
on a long, long while, just as we are. Only Aaron does want a
change; and he made me cry a bit--only a bit--because he said I
didn't care for him, for if I cared for him I should want us to be
married, as he did."

"Eh, my blessed child," said Silas, laying down his pipe as if it
were useless to pretend to smoke any longer, "you're o'er young to
be married. We'll ask Mrs. Winthrop--we'll ask Aaron's mother
what _she_ thinks: if there's a right thing to do, she'll come at
it. But there's this to be thought on, Eppie: things _will_ change,
whether we like it or no; things won't go on for a long while just
as they are and no difference. I shall get older and helplesser,
and be a burden on you, belike, if I don't go away from you
altogether. Not as I mean you'd think me a burden--I know you
wouldn't--but it 'ud be hard upon you; and when I look for'ard to
that, I like to think as you'd have somebody else besides me--
somebody young and strong, as'll outlast your own life, and take
care on you to the end." Silas paused, and, resting his wrists on
his knees, lifted his hands up and down meditatively as he looked on
the ground.

"Then, would you like me to be married, father?" said Eppie, with
a little trembling in her voice.

"I'll not be the man to say no, Eppie," said Silas, emphatically;
"but we'll ask your godmother. She'll wish the right thing by you
and her son too."

"There they come, then," said Eppie. "Let us go and meet 'em.
Oh, the pipe! won't you have it lit again, father?" said Eppie,
lifting that medicinal appliance from the ground.

"Nay, child," said Silas, "I've done enough for to-day. I think,
mayhap, a little of it does me more good than so much at once."