and
judgment, and one could scarcely ask to fall into better hands, if one's
life must be given to the public at all when one has travelled away from
the things of time and sense.

Let us see, then, what manner of woman this was who held a world
entranced by the splendor of her genius for so many years. Here is one
of the earliest glimpses of the child:--

"Any one who happened to look through the windows of Griff House
would have seen a pretty picture in the dining-room Saturday
evening after tea. The powerful, middle-aged man, with the strongly
marked features, sits in his deep leather-covered arm-chair at the
right-hand corner of the ruddy fire-place, with the head of the
'little wench' between his knees. The child turns over the book
with pictures which she wishes her father to explain to her, or
that perhaps she prefers explaining to him. Her rebellious hair is
all over her eyes, much vexing the pale, energetic mother who sits
on the opposite side of the fire, cumbered with much service,
letting no instant of time escape the inevitable click of the
knitting-needles. The father is already proud of the astonishing
and growing intelligence of his little girl. An old-fashioned
child, already living in a world of her own imagination,
impressible to her finger-tips, and ready to give her views upon
any subject."

To readers of "The Mill on the Floss" little description of her
child-life will be necessary. She has, in Maggie, pictured herself as
nearly as possible during childhood. Here is her own description:--

"A creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was
beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear
straining after dreamy music that died away, and would not come to
her; with a blind, unconscious yearning for something that would
link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life and
give her soul a sense of home in it. No wonder, when there is this
contrast between the outward and the inward, that painful
collisions come of it."

In Adam Bede we have a partial portrait of her father, and there are
other striking resemblances to him in Caleb Garth, although neither
character is to be really identified with him. Mrs. Poyser bears the
same partial relation to her mother. With these people for the _dramatis
personae_, the drama could scarcely fail to be a