case when his line of conduct was not matter of pure admiration. Amiable Mrs Tulliver, who was never angry in her life, had yet her mild share of that spirit without which she could hardly have been at once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive towards her own sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest Dodson, over a husband's sister who, besides being poorly off, and inclined to `hang on' her brother, had the good natured submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy, prolific woman, with affection enough in her not only for her own husband and abundant children, but for any number of collateral relations.

`I hope and pray, he won't go to law,' said Mrs Moss, `for there's never any knowing where that'll end. And the right doesn't allays win. This Mr Pivart's a rich man, by what I can make out, and the rich mostly get things their own way.'

`As to that,' said Mrs Tulliver, stroking her dress down, `I've seen what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have got husbands as can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think sometimes I shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and erigation; and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don't know what it is to marry a man like your brother - how should they? Sister Pullet has her own way from morning till night.'

`Well,' said Mrs Moss, `I don't think I should like my husband if he hadn't got any wits of his own, and I had to find head-piece for him. It's deal easier to do what pleases one's husband than to be puzzling what else one should do.'

`If people come to talk o' doing what pleases their husbands,' said Mrs Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister Glegg, `I'm sure your brother might have waited a long while before he'd have found a wife that 'ud have let him have his say in everything as I do. It's nothing but law and erigation now, from when we first get up in the morning till we go to bed at night: and I never contradict him: I only say, "Well Mr Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you do, don't go to law."'

Mrs Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No woman is: she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the reverse; and on the composite impulses that were threatening to hurry Mr Tulliver into `law,' Mrs Tulliver's monotonous pleading had doubtless its share of force; it might even be comparable to that proverbial feather which has the credit or discredit of breaking the camel's back, though on a strictly impartial view the blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight of feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent peril that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without mischief. Not that Mrs Tulliver's feeble beseeching could have had this feather's weight in virtue of her single personality; but whenever she departed from entire assent to her husband, he saw in her the representative of the Dodson family; and it was a guiding principle with Mr Tulliver, to let the Dodsons know that they were not to domineer over him, or - more specifically - that a male Tulliver was far more than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of them was Mrs Glegg.

But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson female herself against his going to law, could have heightened his disposition towards it so much as the mere thought of Wakem, continually freshened by the sight of the too able attorney on market days. Wakem, to his certain knowledge, was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart's irrigation: Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to law about the dam: it was unquestionably Wakem who had caused Mr Tulliver to lose the suit about the right of road and the bridge that made a thoroughfare of his land for every vagabond who preferred an opportunity of damaging private property to walking like an honest man along the high road: all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem's rascality was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself in opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr Tulliver's interests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as cucumber - always looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat hands: a gamecock that you would be rash to bet upon against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow: his weakness did not lie on the side