“Don’t go, Madeline!” said George. “She’s got a snake up there, and it’ll bite you! I saw it as I passed her door!”
“You wicked little wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Jeckyl, thrown for a moment off her guard. “How dare you utter such a falsehood?”
“Mother!” It was the voice of Madeline, and its low tones came to Mrs. Dainty’s ears with such an appealing fear in them that she repressed only by a strong effort an impulse to rush forth into the passage and catch the child up in her arms. But she sat still and listened.
“Don’t go, Maddy!” persisted George, nothing daunted. “She has got a snake there. I saw it.”
A wild cry of fear now broke from the lips of Madeline, that went thrilling through the house. Mrs. Dainty sprung from her room and caught the child from Mrs. Jeckyl’s grasp. As she did so, Madeline shrunk against and clung to her, while her whole frame quivered as you have felt a bird quiver in your hand.
“What ails you, dear?” Mrs. Dainty laid her face down upon the child’s face, and spoke very tenderly.
“It’s that wicked little boy of yours,” said Mrs. Jeckyl, “who has been frightening her with the story of a snake in my room. How dare you do so, sir?”
“Well, so you have!” persisted little Don’t Care. “I saw it. There it is now, in your bosom! See! If its head isn’t peeping out alongside of your neck!”
It was now Mrs. Jeckyl’s turn to start and look frightened. So natural and earnest was the boy’s tones, that even she was for a moment deceived, and clutched convulsively at the imaginary snake.
“Too bad!” she exclaimed, recovering herself. “Too bad!”