Maggie had looked at the back too and saw the title: it revived an old impression with overmastering force.
`"The Pirate,"' she said, taking the book from Philip's hands. `O, I began that once - I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland - and I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head, and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I could never make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what is the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away from the Shetland Isles - I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough sea.'
Maggie spoke rapidly with glistening eyes.
`Take that volume home with you, Maggie,' said Philip, watching her with delight. `I don't want it now. I shall make a picture of you, instead - you among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows.'
Maggie had not heard a word he had said - she was absorbed in a page at which she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it back to Philip shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to say `avaunt' to floating visions.
`Do keep it, Maggie,' said Philip, entreatingly, `it will give you pleasure.'
`No, thank you,' said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and walking on. `It would make me in love with this world again, as I used to be; it would make me long to see and know many things - it would make me long for a full life.'
`But you will not always be shut up in your present lot: why should you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism - I don't like to see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.'
`But not for me - not for me,' said Maggie, walking more hurriedly. `Because I should want too much. I must wait - this life will not last long.'
`Don't hurry away from me without saying "good by," Maggie,' said Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she continued still to walk along without speaking. `I must not go any farther, I think, must I?'
`O no, I forgot; goodby,' said Maggie, pausing and putting out her hand to him. The action brought her feeling back in a strong current to Philip, and after they had stood looking at each other in silence for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her hand,
`I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks. I remember saying to you, that I thought you cared for me more than Tom did.'
`Ah, Maggie,' said Philip, almost fretfully, `you would never love me so well as you love your brother.'
`Perhaps not,' said Maggie, simply, `but then, you know, the first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of the Floss while he held my hand - everything before that is dark to me. But I shall never forget you - though we must keep apart.'
`Don't say so, Maggie,' said Philip. `If I kept that little girl in my mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in her? She ought not to take herself quite away from me.'
`Not if I were free,' said Maggie, `but I am not - I must submit.' She hesitated a moment and then added, `And I wanted to say to you, that you had better not take more notice of my brother than just bowing to