Mrs. Russelthorpe, with praiseworthy presence of mind, caught up the rug and smothered her niece in it.
The blaze was out in a minute, but Meg's arm was badly burnt, and her doll was a blackened stump.
The child was beside herself with grief, and for the moment she no more felt physical pain than if she had been under chloroform. She turned to her aunt with her grey eyes blazing.
"Oh! how I hate you, Aunt Russelthorpe!" she cried. "I can't burn you—I wish—I wish I could; but I will hate you every moment of every day just as long as ever I live!"
It was after this episode that Meg took to slipping away in play-hours, and wandering off on her own devices. She felt secretly sore with Miss Cripps, and Laura and Kate, who had all looked on, and done nothing to avert the tragedy. She buried her doll in a corner of Bryanston Square, wrapped in a cambric handkerchief; but she could never laugh or play there afterwards.
She had suffered for that bit of wax as if it had been a sentient creature, that she had seen writhe in the flames. The object had been absurd enough, but the love that enveloped it had been living, and that died hard.
Meg shot up, mentally and physically about this time, and grew lanky and pale: she was beginning to leave childish ways behind her; but her childish grief had one odd result,—it led to a curious alliance between herself and her old uncle, who, of all people in the world, was supposed to most detest children.
The Russelthorpes seldom dined alone; but Mr. Russelthorpe, having established a reputation for eccentricity, left the entertaining to his wife, and would often shuffle off to his quiet study, even before dinner was fairly over.
One night he was earlier than usual.
His slippered feet made no noise as he crossed the hall, but he drew a breath of relief on entering his own den, and his breath was echoed by a startled gasp from the top of the library steps.