I don't know i' what she's behind other folks's children; and she can read almost as well as the parson." "But her hair won't curl all I can do with it, and she's so franzy about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as never was to make her stand and have it pinched with th' irons." "Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father, rashly.
"How can you talk so, Mr.Tulliver?
She's too big a gell--gone nine, and tall of her age--to have her hair cut short; an' there's her cousin Lucy's got a row o' curls round her head, an' not a hair out o' place.

It seems hard as my sister Deane should have that pretty child; I'm sure Lucy takes more after me nor my own child does.

Maggie, Maggie," continued the mother, in a tone of half-coaxing fretfulness, as this small mistake of nature entered the room, "where's the use o' my telling you to keep away from the water?
You'll tumble in and be drownded some day, an' then you'll be sorry you didn't do as mother told you." Maggie's hair, as she threw off her bonnet, painfully confirmed her mother's accusation.

Mrs.Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a curled crop, "like other folks's children," had had it cut too short in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes,--an action which gave her very much the air of a small Shetland pony.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to throw your bonnet down there?
Take it upstairs, there's a good gell, an' let your hair be brushed, an' put your other pinafore on, an' change your shoes, do, for shame; an' come an' go on with your patchwork, like a little lady." "Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I don't _want_ to do my patchwork." "What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt Glegg ?" "It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane,--"tearing things to pieces to sew 'em together again.

And I don't want to do anything for my aunt Glegg.