Miriam Leivers Timeline and Summary

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• Miriam bursts onto the scene in Chapter 7. Okay, she doesn't really burst onto the scene. But she's there, and she seems nice when Paul first visits Willey Farm.
• Paul teaches Miriam to feed the chickens without being afraid. Miriam is very reluctant to do anything she associates with "common" people.
• She considers herself to be an unacknowledged princess.
• Paul comes to visit her brothers, and Miriam won't hang out with them, thinking it below her. She becomes ashamed whenever Paul sees her going about the household duties.
• Yawn.
• One day when Paul is over, Miriam burns the potatoes for dinner. Her family humiliates her in front of Paul.
• She and Paul start to take walks and talk about life and stuff. Well, Miriam does more listening than talking, but she seems to enjoy herself.
• One day, Miriam expresses her resentment about being a girl, and not having the same opportunities that boys get.
• Paul offers to teach her math, and after some convincing, she agrees.
• As she keeps hanging with Paul, she starts thinking that some sort of magic communion will happen between them.
• She's kind of nutty.
• Miriam's sister Agatha starts to tease her about being in love with Paul. She embarrasses Miriam when Paul comes over.
• One night, Miriam visits Paul when Mrs. Morel is upstairs. She insists they aren't doing anything wrong, but Paul is worried.
• When Mrs. Morel comes downstairs, she greets Miriam with laserbeam, I-hate-you eyes.
• Miriam goes with the Morels to a cottage, where she knows she isn't really welcome.
• She gets Paul alone and tries to start a conversation about how they should be together. He's still resistant, though.
• Then, while she's hanging out with a friend named Clara Dawes, she runs into Paul. Paul takes an interest in Clara, and she tries to ask him about it.
• He's dodgy, though.
• Miriam is very solid in her religious faith, but she suffers when Paul tries to tear it down.
• One day, she goes to visit Paul when his mother is out. Another family friend named Beatrice comes barging in and flirts openly with Paul. This upsets Miriam, but she doesn't say anything.
• Then Annie comes home and tells Miriam to scram.
• Miriam starts to sense Paul distancing himself from her. She tries to resist it, but finds it hard.
• She knows that someone is driving a wedge between her and Paul (cough cough Mrs. Morel cough cough), and just wishes people would leave the two of them alone.
• Paul stops hanging out with Miriam alone. To get him to keep coming to her, she starts inviting Clara over more and more. Then she invites Paul over by letting him know Clara will be there.
• It's a plan that could easily backfire, as you might imagine.
• Paul is courteous with Clara in a way that he's never been with Miriam, and this hurts her. He makes fun of Miriam whenever Clara is around.
• Miriam eventually receives a letter from Paul saying that he doesn't want to hang out anymore because she's too intense.
• We have to admit: she's pretty intense.
• But in that letter, he calls her a nun, which is nasty, under the circumstances.
• Paul starts going out with Clara, but Miriam is confident that he'll come crawling back to her once he's had his fun.
• She's the egocentric—er, optimistic sort.
• Sure enough, Paul does come crawling back. But he specifically comes crawling back to sleep with Miriam.
• Miriam agrees and sleeps with him a bunch of times, though she never feels happy about it. She sees it as a sacrifice she's making for Paul.
• Paul asks her if she'd like to get married, but she won't say yes. She keeps throwing the ball back in his court, wanting him to demand marriage.
• This angers him so much that he eventually stops seeing her… again.
• Miriam keeps a cottage for her grandmother. Paul comes over and they live as husband and wife for a few days. But that fizzles out, too.
• Paul breaks things off again.
• This yes-no-yes-no game they play is exhausting.
• This one time, Miriam sees Paul while he's going out with Clara. She says it must be hard on Clara's reputation as a married woman, then scolds Paul for not caring about Clara's rep.
• Miriam knows Clara and Paul are in love, and it kills her.
• She sees them in chapel together, doing all the things she and Paul used to do together, but she keeps burying her feelings.
• After she finds out that Mrs. Morel has gotten sick, Miriam visits the Morel house and is pained to see the toll the illness has taken on Paul.
• It's all about Paul, Paul, Paul in her world.
• Finally, as she's leaving church one night, Paul Morel comes up to her. It's clear that he's been leading a hard life of drinking.
• Miriam agrees to go back to his boarding house with him and hang out. While there, they talk one last time about being together.
• Paul wants her to take the initiative and ask him to marry her, but she won't do it.
• He won't ask her, either.
• So they part ways again, and that's that. Poor Miriam.
• Poor, arrogant, stubborn, Miriam.