Book 6 - Chapter 7 - Page 2

when they have found
some protection to cling to and look back on the threatened danger.
For Philip, who a little while ago was associated continually in
Maggie's mind with the sense that Tom might reproach her with some
justice, had now, in this short space, become a sort of outward
conscience to her, that she might fly to for rescue and strength. Her
tranquil, tender affection for Philip, with its root deep down in her
childhood, and its memories of long quiet talk confirming by distinct
successive impressions the first instinctive bias,--the fact that in
him the appeal was more strongly to her pity and womanly devotedness
than to her vanity or other egoistic excitability of her
nature,--seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a sanctuary where
she could find refuge from an alluring influence which the best part
of herself must resist; which must bring horrible tumult within,
wretchedness without. This new sense of her relation to Philip
nullified the anxious scruples she would otherwise have felt, lest she
should overstep the limit of intercourse with him that Tom would
sanction; and she put out her hand to him, and felt the tears in her
eyes without any consciousness of an inward check. The scene was just
what Lucy expected, and her kind heart delighted in bringing Philip
and Maggie together again; though, even with all _her_ regard for
Philip, she could not resist the impression that her cousin Tom had
some excuse for feeling shocked at the physical incongruity between
the two,--a prosaic person like cousin Tom, who didn't like poetry and
fairy tales. But she began to speak as soon as possible, to set them
at ease.

"This was very good and virtuous of you," she said, in her pretty
treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds, "to come so
soon after your arrival. And as it is, I think I will pardon you for
running away in an inopportune manner, and giving your friends no
notice. Come and sit down here," she went on, placing the chair that
would suit him best, "and you shall find yourself treated mercifully."

"You will never govern well, Miss Deane," said Philip, as he seated
himself, "because no one will ever believe in your severity. People
will always encourage themselves in misdemeanors by the certainty that
you will be indulgent."

Lucy gave some playful contradiction, but Philip did not hear what it
was, for he had naturally turned toward Maggie, and she was looking at
him with that open, affectionate scrutiny which we give to a friend
from whom we have been long separated. What a moment their parting had
been! And Philip felt as if he were only in the morrow of it. He felt
this so keenly,--with such intense, detailed remembrance, with such
passionate revival