"Fie, for shame!" said Aunt Glegg, in her severest tone of reproof. "Little girls that cut their own hair should be whipped and fed on bread and water, not come and sit down with their aunts and uncles."
"Aye, aye," said Uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn, "she must be sent to jail, I think, and they'll cut the rest of her hair off there, and make it all even."
"She's more like a gypsy than ever," said Aunt Pullet in a pitying tone.
"She's a naughty child, that'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs. Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.
Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision. Her first flush came from anger. Tom thought she was braving it out, supported by the recent appearance of the pudding and custard.
He whispered: "Oh, my! Maggie, I told you you'd catch it." He meant to be friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her ignominy.
Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant, her heart swelled, and, getting up from her chair, she ran to her father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing. "Come, come," said her father, soothingly, putting his arm round her, "never mind; give over crying: father'll take your part."
Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of these moments when her father "took her part"; she kept them in her heart, and thought of them long years after, when every one else said that her father had done very ill by his children.
George Eliot: "The Mill on the Floss."
(Adapted)