Deane, Lucy

Maggie Tulliver's good, pretty, and affectionate cousin, the favourite of the Dodson aunts. "Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous, and, to superficial eyes, was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie, though a connoisseur might have seen 'points' in her which had a higher promise for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed: everything about her was neat—her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match her hazel eyes, which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie." When she is grown up, Lucy, the belle of St. Ogg'a, still retains her childhood affection for her cousin Maggie whom she admires, and she delights in playing fairy-god mother to Maggie. When Lucy's fiance, Stephen Guest, and Maggie go away together, Lucy suffers greatly, but does not blame Maggie for her unhappiness. Years later she and Stephen are married. The original of Lucy Deane, in the part of the story in which she is still a child, was George Eliot's sister, Crissy.

<em>The Mill on the Floss</em>

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