At the touch of those fingers, Maggie shuddered involuntarily. There
was a vague, undefined terror stealing over her, and, impatient to
know the worst, she said, "Go on, tell me what you did."
"I can't--I can't--and yet I must!" cried Hagar. "You were a beautiful
baby, Maggie, and the other one was sickly, pinched, and blue. I
had you both in my room the night after Hester died; and the
devil--Maggie, do you know how the devil will creep into the heart,
and whisper, whisper till the brain is all on fire? This thing he did
to me, Maggie, nineteen years ago, he whispered--whispered dreadful
things, and his whisperings were of you!"
"Horrible, Hagar!" exclaimed Maggie. "Leave the devil, and tell me of
yourself."
"That's it," answered Hagar. "If I had but left him then, this hour
would never have come to me; but I listened, and when he told me that
a handsome, healthy child would be more acceptable to the Conways than
a weakly, fretful one--when he said that Hagar Warren's grandchild had
far better be a lady than a drudge--that no one would ever know it,
for none had noticed either--I did it, Maggie Miller; I took you from
the pine-board cradle where you lay--I dressed you in the other baby's
clothes--I laid you on her pillow--I wrapped her in your coarse white
frock--I said that she was mine, and Margaret--oh, Heaven! can't you
see it? Don't you know that I, the shriveled, skinny hag who tells you
this, am your own grandmother!"
There was no need for Maggie Miller to answer that appeal.
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