The instant these words reached the ears of Madeline, she sprung upon the volume in the hands of Miss Harper, and would have torn the open pages, if she had not been prevented. Her countenance was flushed almost to congestion, and her eyes gleamed with an evil light.
“Don’t read that! I won’t hear it! I hate it!” she exclaimed, passionately.
Florence felt a cold shudder run through her frame. Very still she sat, and silent, holding the hands of Madeline. For nearly a minute the hush as of death pervaded the room. Then she released the passive hands she held, and laid one of her own upon the child’s head, smoothing the soft hair with a gentle pressure.
“Once—it is not many years ago—there was a dear little baby.” The lips of Florence were close to the ears of Madeline, her voice was very low, the tones even and tenderly modulated. “I do not think there was ever a sweeter baby born into the world. It had the roundest of rosy cheeks, that were softer than any velvet; eyes as blue as spring’s first violets; and rich brown hair clustering, in the tiniest little curls that ever were seen, all over its head. As this beautiful baby lay in its mother’s arms, it looked like a cherub more than like an earth-born baby.”
Florence paused, for Madeline had placed both hands over her ears, so that not a word could reach the sense of hearing. She waited, with forced calmness, until the hands were removed. Madeline did not look up into her face, but kept her eyes resting on the floor.
“There were other attendants on that baby, besides those visible to human eyes.”
The hands of Madeline were raised quickly, but the closing words of the sentence arrested the movement.
“The mother did not see them; the father did not see them: but still they were there.”
The hands of Madeline began to fall, and her ear slightly turned, listening, toward Florence.
“I said they were not visible to human eyes,” resumed Miss Harper. Madeline looked up, beguiled into wonder. “But they were as really present, and as near the baby, as its parents. No,—not both of them.” The last sentence was spoken in a changed tone, as if it involved some special meaning.