CHAPTER II. This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as Mrs

This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up in keen apprehension. The postbag, that evening—it came late—contained a letter for me, which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but of a few words enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal still unbroken. " This, I recognize, is from the headmaster, and the headmaster's an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind you don't report. Not a word. I'm off! " I broke the seal with a great effort—so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that I determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose.

" What does it mean? The child's dismissed his school."

She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. " But aren't they all—? "

" Sent home—yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at all."

Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. " They won't take him? "

" They absolutely decline."

At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them fill with good tears. " What has he done? "

I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter—which, however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. " Such things are not for me, miss."

My counselor couldn't read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my pocket. " Is he really BAD? "

The tears were still in her eyes. " Do the gentlemen say so? "

" They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it should be impossible to keep him. That can have only one meaning." Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on: " That he's an injury to the others."

At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed up. " Master Miles! HIM an injury? "

There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, sarcastically. " To his poor little innocent mates! "

" It's too dreadful, " cried Mrs. Grose, " to say such cruel things! Why, he's scarce ten years old."

" Yes, yes; it would be incredible."

She was evidently grateful for such a profession. " See him, miss, first. THEN believe it! " I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was the beginning of a curiosity that, for all the next hours, was to deepen almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. " You might as well believe it of the little lady. Bless her, " she added the next moment—" LOOK at her! "

I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil, and a copy of nice " round o's, " now presented herself to view at the open door. She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from disagreeable duties, looking to me, however, with a great childish light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of Mrs. Grose's comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement.

Nonetheless, the rest of the day I watched for further occasion to approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the staircase; we went down together, and at the bottom I detained her, holding her there with a hand on her arm. " I take what you said to me at noon as a declaration that YOU'VE never known him to be bad."

She threw back her head; she had clearly, by this time, and very honestly, adopted an attitude. " Oh, never known him—I don't pretend THAT! "

I was upset again. " Then you HAVE known him—? "

" Yes indeed, miss, thank God! "

On reflection I accepted this. " You mean that a boy who never is—? "

" Is no boy for ME! "

I held her tighter. " You like them with the spirit to be naughty? " Then, keeping pace with her answer, " So do I! " I eagerly brought out. " But not to the degree to contaminate—"

" To contaminate? " —my big word left her at a loss. I explained it. " To corrupt."

She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. " Are you afraid he'll corrupt YOU? " She put the question with such a fine bold humor that, with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule.

But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in another place. " What was the lady who was here before? "

" The last governess? She was also young and pretty—almost as young and almost as pretty, miss, even as you."

" Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her! " I recollect throwing off. " He seems to like us young and pretty! "

" Oh, he DID, " Mrs. Grose assented: " it was the way he liked everyone! " She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up. " I mean that's HIS way—the master's."

I was struck. " But of whom did you speak first? "

She looked blank, but she colored. " Why, of HIM."

" Of the master? "

" Of who else? "

There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I merely asked what I wanted to know. " Did SHE see anything in the boy—? "

" That wasn't right? She never told me."

I had a scruple, but I overcame it. " Was she careful—particular? "

Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. " About some things—yes."

" But not about all? "

Again she considered. " Well, miss—she's gone. I won't tell tales."

" I quite understand your feeling, " I hastened to reply; but I thought it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: " Did she die here? "

" No—she went off."

I don't know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose's that struck me as ambiguous. " Went off to die? " Mrs. Grose looked straight out of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. " She was taken ill, you mean, and went home? "

" She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We had then a young woman—a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for the interval. But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead."

I turned this over. " But of what? "

" He never told me! But please, miss, " said Mrs. Grose, " I must get to my work."