He turned immediately towards the hearth where Silas Marner sat
lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep- only
soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide gazing calm
which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a
certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel
before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky- before a
steady-glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending
trees over a silent pathway. The wide-open blue eyes looked up at
Godfrey's without any uneasiness or sign of recognition: the child
could make no visible audible claim on its father; and the father felt
a strange mixture of feelings, a conflict of regret and joy, that
the pulse of that little heart had no response for the half jealous
yearning in his own, when the blue eyes turned away from him slowly,
and fixed themselves on the weaver's queer face, which was bent low
down to look at them, while the small hand began to pull Marner's
withered cheek with loving disfiguration.
'You'll take the child to the parish tomorrow?' asked Godfrey,
speaking as indifferently as he could.
'Who says so?' said Marner, sharply. 'Will they make me take her?'
'Why, you wouldn't like to keep her, should you- an old bachelor
like you?'
'Till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me,' said
Marner.
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