“What a nice little girl!” she said, holding her tightly in one hand, and smoothing her hair with the other. “What sweet curls! Where did you get them, dear?”
But Madeline, with a flushed, half-frightened face, tried to release herself from the woman’s firm grip.
“What dear children you have!” said Mrs. Jeckyl, now insinuating an arm around Madeline, and continuing to smooth her hair with gentle but regularly-repeated passes. “We shall be the best of friends in a little while. I shall love them very much.”
Once or twice Madeline, over whose face rapid changes were passing, (at one moment it was deeply flushed, and at the next overspread by a strange pallor,) made a spring in the effort to release herself. But the hand of Mrs. Jeckyl, that was upon her arm, tightened to a vice-like grasp, while the other intermitted not for an instant its regular motions, just above, or slightly touching, her hair.
“We shall be very good friends, madam,—the best of friends. I always attach children strongly.” Mrs. Jeckyl spoke confidently, and like one wholly at her ease.
At this moment Mrs. Dainty became oppressed with a feeling of vague terror, united with an almost intolerable repugnance toward Mrs. Jeckyl; and it was with an effort that she overcame the impulse to spring forward and snatch Madeline from her investing arm. A little while she struggled weakly against this strange feeling; then it passed slowly away, and, like one awakening from a dream, she found the current of her life moving on once more in its regular channels. But she had a different impression of Mrs. Jeckyl, and a new feeling toward her. It seemed as if they had been suddenly removed from each other, and to so great a distance that immediate contact was forever impossible. She was about suggesting that it might be as well for Mrs. Jeckyl to defer until the next day her formal entrance into the family, when she observed a change in Madeline, who, instead of endeavoring to get away from the new governess, now leaned against her, although the hand that held her a little while before was no longer closed upon her arm. Almost at the moment of noticing this, Mrs. Jeckyl raised the unresisting child to her lap, who leaned her head back against her, and gazed up into her face with a pleased, confiding, almost affectionate, look.
“I said we would be good friends.” Mrs. Jeckyl glanced with an exultant smile toward Mrs. Dainty. “I understand the art of attaching children. What a dear, sweet child this is! I promise myself a world of pleasure in entering into her pure young mind and storing it with lessons of wisdom. And your oldest daughter——”
Mrs. Jeckyl turned her glittering eyes—that seemed to have in them a charmed power—upon Agnes.
For a moment or two the young girl was retained by them, as if a spell were on her: then she turned away and fled from the room, her whole being pervaded by a strange sense of fear.
Not in the smallest degree did Mrs. Jeckyl seem to be disconcerted at this.