Mr Tulliver looked around him meditatively, at Tom, at Mr Glegg, and at Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware that some one was seated by his side at the head of the bed he turned sharply round and saw his sister.
“Eh, Gritty!” he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone in which he had been wont to speak to her. “What! you’re there, are you? How could you manage to leave the children?”
“Oh, brother!” said good Mrs Moss, too impulsive to be prudent, “I’m thankful I’m come now to see you yourself again; I thought you’d never know us any more.”
“What! have I had a stroke?” said Mr Tulliver, anxiously, looking at Mr Glegg.
“A fall from your horse—shook you a bit,—that’s all, I think,” said Mr Glegg. “But you’ll soon get over it, let’s hope.”
Mr Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained silent for two or three minutes. A new shadow came over his face. He looked up at Maggie first, and said in a lower tone, “You got the letter, then, my wench?”
“Yes, father,” she said, kissing him with a full heart. She felt as if her father were come back to her from the dead, and her yearning to show him how she had always loved him could be fulfilled.
“Where’s your mother?” he said, so preoccupied that he received the kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it.
“She’s downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?”
“Ay, ay; poor Bessy!” and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left the room.