Before you read:
What do you remember about Silas Marner?
What do you think will happen next?
One evening, Silas returns to his cottage and finds a small girl sleeping near the fireplace. The girl
is cold and hungry. Silas thinks something must have happened to her parents. They might have
had an accident. He decides to look after her. He calls her Eppie. The other people in the village
are surprised, but they think that Silas can‟t be a bad person because he wants to look after the
girl. They also help him. Silas is now happier. He realises that his new daughter is more important
to him than gold. When Eppie is eighteen, Silas‘s gold is found and returned to him.
It was Dunstan who took the money all those years ago because he did not want to ask his
father for money. Godfrey is sorry about what his brother did and thinks Silas must be angry with
him. He and his wife offer to look after Eppie. However, Eppie wants to stay with Silas.
Silas decides to return to his old village with Eppie. He wants to prove that he wasn‘t guilty of
stealing all those years earlier. When he arrives, he finds that everything has changed and he
can‘t find anyone that he used to know. Silas feels that he can now forget about this unpleasant
part of his history and he returns happily to Raveloe.
Drill 2
Read the rest of the summary again. Are the sentences true (T) or false (F)? Correct the false
sentences.
1 Silas spends less time thinking about money because he has Eppie. ..........
2 Squire Cass‘s son, Godfrey stole Silas‘s money. .................
3 Eppie goes to live with Godfrey and his wife. ....................
4 Silas returns to his old village and shows everyone he knew that he didn‘t steal the gold. ..........
Match the words in bold to the defnitions.
characters pace page-turner plot theme
1 This is the story of a book. ............................................
2 These are the people in the story. ............................................
3 This is the idea or moral in the story. ............................................