's talking about so as never was. And you should
hear her read--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. But
it's bad--it's bad. A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll
turn to trouble, I doubt. It's a pity, but what she'd been the
lad--she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would."

Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff before he said, "But your lad's not
stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making
fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."

"Well, he isn't not to say stupid; he's got a notion o' things out o'
door, an' a sort o' commonsense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right
handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and reads but poorly,
and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as
shy as can be wi' strangers. Now, what I want is to send him to a school
where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, to make
a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these fellows as have
got the start o' me with schooling."

The talk ended in Mr. Riley recommending a country parson named Stelling
as a suitable tutor for Tom, and Mr. Tulliver decided that his son
should go to Mr. Stelling at King's Lorton, fifteen miles from Dorlcote
Mill.

_II.--School-Time_

Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
rather severe. It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself
to the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was
not to be brought up to his father's business, which he had always
thought extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but riding about, giving
orders, and going to market.

Mr. Stelling was not a harsh-tempered or unkind man--quite the contrary,
but he thought Tom a stupid boy, and determined to develop his powers
through Latin grammar and Euclid to the best of his ability.

As for Tom, he had no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as
Latin on this earth. It would have taken a long while to make it
conceivable to him that there ever existed a people who bought and sold
sheep and oxen, and transacted the everyday affairs of life through the
medium of this language, or why he should be called upon to learn it,
when its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. He
was of a very firm, not to say obstinate disposition, but there was no
brute-like rebellion or recklessness in his na