"I don't know what you mean," said Emma, ore and more alarmed. "I want to go back to Ben."
"Would you leave your mother, my child?"
"You are not my mother. Let me go."
Emma ran to the door, but it was locked, and the key was in the lady's pocket.
"I cannot let you go, my dear child. You have been away from me too long already. I have been very lonely without you."
Her tone was still kind—it had never varied—but Emma was thoroughly frightened.
"Let me go!" she began to cry. "I want to go to Ben."
The lady looked at her in mingled grief and wonder.
"Can a child turn from her own mother to a stranger?" she said musingly. "She forgets that she is my little Mary. She no longer loves me."
"My name is Emma," said the little girl. "Why did you take me away from Ben?"