Guest, Stephen

Lucy Deane's handsome, idle lover. "The fine young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in the extremely abbreviated face of the King Charles lying on the young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond ring, attar of roses, and air of nonchalant leisure, at twelve o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St. Ogg's ... a rather striking young man of five-andtwenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair standing erect, with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of corn, and a half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his well-marked horizontal eyebrows." Although he and Lucy Deane are tacitly engaged, he falls passionately in love with Maggie Tulliver, and, after a brief struggle, yields to this passion. He prevails on Maggie to leave St. Ogg's with him and is keenly disappointed when she decides not to marry him but to return to her family. Years later he and Lucy come together again and are married.

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

Text