his time profitably. The boys would be quite of the family - the finest thing in the world for them - under Stelling's eye continually.'

`But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o' pudding?' said Mrs Tulliver, who was now in her place again. `He's such a boy for pudding as never was; an' a growing boy like that - it's dreadful to think o' their stintin' him.'

`And what money 'ud he want?' said Mr Tulliver, whose instinct told him that the services of this admirable M.A. would bear a high price.

`Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty with his youngest pupils, and he's not to be mentioned with Stelling, the man I speak of. I know on good authority that one of the chief people at Oxford said, `Stelling might get the highest honours if he chose.' But he didn't care about university honours. He's a quiet man - not showy, not noisy.'

`Ah, a deal better, a deal better,' said Mr Tulliver. `But a hundred and fifty's an uncommon price. I never thought o' payin' so much as that.'

`A good education, let me tell you, Tulliver - a good education is cheap at the money. But Stelling is moderate in his terms - he's not a grasping man. I've no doubt he'd take your boy at a hundred, and that's what you wouldn't get many other clergymen to do. I'll write to him about it, if you like.'

Mr Tulliver rubbed his knees and looked at the carpet in a meditative manner.

`But belike he's a bachelor,' observed Mrs Tulliver in the interval, `an' I've no opinion o' housekeepers. There was my brother as is dead an' gone had a housekeeper once, an'she took half the feathers out o' the best bed an' packed em'up an' sent 'em away. An' it's unknown the linen she made away with - Stott her name was. It 'ud break my heart to send Tom where there's a housekeeper, an' I hope you won't think of it, Mr Tulliver.'

`You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs Tulliver,' said Mr Riley, `for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man need wish for a wife. There isn't a kinder little soul in the world; I know her family well. She has very much your complexion - light curly hair. She comes of a good Mudport family, and it's not every offer that would have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stelling's not an everyday man. Rather a particular fellow as to the people he chooses to be connected with. But I think he would have no objection to take your son - I think he would not, on my representation.'

`I don't know what he could have again' the lad,' said Mrs Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation, `a nice fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see.'

`But there's one thing I'm thinking on,' said Mr Tulliver, turning his head on one side and looking at Mr Riley, after a long perusal of the carpet. `Wouldn't a parson be a'most too high-learnt to bring up a lad to be a man o' business? My notion o' the parsons was as they'd got a sort o' learning as lay mostly out o' sight. And that isn't what I want for Tom. I want him to know figures, and write like print, and see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap things up in words as aren't actionable. It's an uncommon fine thing, that is,' concluded Mr Tulliver, shaking his head, `when you can let a man know what you think of him without paying for it.'

`O my dear Tulliver,' said Mr Riley, `you're quite under a mistake about the clergy: all the best schoolmasters are of the clergy. The schoolmasters who are not clergymen, are a very low set of men generally'...

`Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'Cademy,' interposed Mr Tulliver.

`To be sure - men who have failed in other trades, most likely. Now a clergyman is a gentleman by profession and education: and besides that, he has the knowledge that will ground a boy, and prepare him for entering