`Why do you like my eyes?' said Maggie, well pleased. She had never heard any one but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit.

`I don't know,' said Philip. `They're not like any other eyes. They seem trying to speak - trying to speak kindly. I don't like other people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, Maggie.'

`Why, I think you're fonder of me than Tom is,' said Maggie, rather sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could convince Philip that she could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said,

`Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom? I will, if you like.'

`Yes, very much: nobody kisses me.'

Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly.

`There now,' she said, `I shall always remember you, and kiss you when I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll go now, because I think Mr Askern's done with Tom's foot.'

When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, `O father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom - he is such a clever boy, and I do love him. And you love him too, Tom, don't you? Say you love him,' she added entreatingly.

Tom coloured a little as he looked at his father and said, `I shan't be friends with him when I leave school, father; but we've made it up now, since my foot has been bad, and he's taught me to play at draughts, and I can beat him.'

`Well, Well,' said Mr Tulliver, `if he's good to you, try and make him amends and be good to him. He's a poor crooked creatur and takes after his dead mother. But don't you be getting too thick with him - he's got his father's blood in him too. Ay, ay, the grey colt may chance to kick like his black sire.'

The jarring natures of the two boys effected what Mr Tulliver's admonition alone might have failed to effect: in spite of Philip's new kindness and Tom's answering regard in this time of his trouble they never became close friends. When Maggie was gone, and when Tom by and by began to walk about as usual, the friendly warmth that had been kindled by pity and gratitude died out by degrees, and left them in their old relation to each other. Philip was often peevish and contemptuous: and Tom's more specific and kindly impressions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike towards him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue. If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix: else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out.