“On my recommendation!”
“Yes.”
“In the first place, doctor, I don’t know Mrs. Dainty, except by sight; and, in the second place, I have never recommended Mrs. Jeckyl to anybody.”
“There has been some deception, then,” said Dr. Edmonson.
“There certainly has, if I have been made to endorse the woman. I did speak of her, to one or two persons, as an Englishwoman who desired to get the situation of governess, and I may have spoken of her as educated and accomplished,—not so much from my knowledge of her acquirements as from her own testimony in the case. And now I remember that somebody told me that Mrs. Dainty was about changing her governess, and that I mentioned this to Mrs. Jeckyl and advised her to see about the matter. This is the utmost of my doings in the case.”
“What is your impression of the woman?” inquired the doctor.
“Not particularly favorable,” said Mrs. Ashton. “I can hardly tell how she got access to my family in the beginning. At first I pitied her lonely and almost helpless condition in a strange country, and felt some interest in her; but this interest has steadily diminished, until now the woman is so repulsive that I can scarcely endure her presence.”
“And this is all you know of her?”
“All; and I am pained to think that she has been received into any family on my supposed recommendation. I should not like her to have a controlling influence over my children. But pray, doctor, what has happened in connection with her and Mrs. Dainty’s family? I hope she has not been robbing them, or any thing of that kind?”
“Nothing of that kind,” answered the doctor. “But I’m afraid she has been attempting mesmeric influence over one of Mrs. Dainty’s children.”