The baby blinked speechlessly. It was not an engaging child. To Prudence, much as she loved her sister, it seemed strange and absolutely hateful.
“You little wretch!” she cried, over-mastered by her rising anger. “Don’t you see the horrible position you have placed us both in? You took too much. You must have been a nasty, greedy, selfish, foolish thing to have swallowed up all that water, or this would never have happened. Are you really my sister? How can I prove it? Who will believe me? Perhaps the next thing will be that I shall be hanged for having murdered her.” At this thought Prudence was for a moment on the verge of fresh hysterics.
“What on earth am I to do? There you are, a baby to all intents and purposes. My good gracious! what on earth shall I do with you? I cannot keep you in this house. How can I explain? They won’t believe me—why, I wouldn’t believe it myself if anyone told me. How shall I account for your disappearance? and you can’t even speak to back me up if I tell the truth. Not you! You’d see me hanged and never say a word”—which was unjust, considering poor Augusta was not able to speak. Lashing herself to fury, Prudence paced up and down the room, wringing her hands.
“Augusta! I always was a good sister to you, and bore with your tempers, and divided everything with you; but now, you horrid, selfish, ugly little thing, I declare I hate you. I’ll just wrap you up in a shawl, and drop you somewhere. Oh, you lit—tle wr—r—retch, I should like to shake you.”
Suiting the action to the word, Prudence pounced on the baby, and shook it till its big cap fell quite off, and its head wobbled.
Augusta was terrified, and began to howl lustily. She was so small, so helpless, that a certain revulsion of pity came over Prudence. She ceased shaking, and tried to soothe her.
“There now! there now!” she exclaimed, exactly as if speaking to a real baby, “don’t cry. I’ll see what can be done. I suppose you took an overdose. Will you try and put up your hand if you did?”
The baby put up its hand.
“Does it hurt? do you feel bad?”
The baby shook its bald head, and made an ineffectual attempt to demonstrate that its sufferings were chiefly mental.