Adam Bede had not been long in the hands of readers when a new novel was begun. At the end of April 1859 George Eliot had finished a short story called “The Lifted Veil”—taken up as “a resource when her head was too stupid for more important work”—and was about to “rewrite” the first two chapters of the novel which ultimately received the name of The Mill on the Floss. The first volume was finished before October, the second on 16th January, and the third on 21st March 1860. It appeared at the beginning of April, rivalled Adam Bede in its immediate popularity, and sustained or increased her reputation with the most thoughtful readers. In one respect, as already intimated, it is clearly the most interesting of all her books. In the Scenes of Clerical Life she had made use of the stories current in the early domestic circle; in Adam Bede she had drawn a portrait of that circle itself; and she now took herself for a heroine, and the first two volumes become virtually a spiritual autobiography. The title originally suggested, “Sister Maggie,” is really the most appropriate. The external circumstances have, of course, been altered. The scenery is supposed to be in Lincolnshire, and the town of St. Ogg's is said to represent Gainsborough. But her native district still supplies the details. The “round pool,” to which she had gone on fishing expeditions with her brother, and the “Red Deeps,” which had been a favourite haunt, are transported from Griff to Dorlcote Mill.