Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly, and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother’s knee. Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous. It was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her was neat—her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match her hazel eyes, which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight. She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any larger than children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like Lucy, with a little crown on her head, and a little sceptre in her hand—only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy’s form.
“Oh, Lucy,” she burst out, after kissing her, “you’ll stay with Tom and me, won’t you? Oh, kiss her, Tom.”
Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her—no; he came up to her with Maggie, because it seemed easier, on the whole, than saying, “How do you do?” to all those aunts and uncles. He stood looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company,—very much as if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing.
“Maggie,” said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whispering in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy’s staying was settled, “go and get your hair brushed. I told you not to come in without going to Martha first; you know I did.”
“Tom, come out with me,” whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough.
“Come upstairs with me, Tom,” she whispered, when they were outside the door. “There’s something I want to do before dinner.”
“There’s no time to play at anything before dinner,” said Tom, whose imagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect.
“Oh yes, there is time for this; do come, Tom.”
Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother’s room, and saw her go at once to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors.
“What are they for, Maggie?” said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened.