Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/208

198 Ally if she had been playing with the stone. He could tell with his eyes shut, by touching her hands, in which hand the stone lay; and he never entirely lost the first feeling of fear and repulsion with which we regarded the gem. He said again and again to me:—

"Will, I 'm ashamed of the feeling, but I do hate to have Ally keep that stone. I can't shake off a sort of presentiment that evil will some day come to her through it. I do wish it could be lost, but it is never away from her one second. At night she hides it under her pillow, and by day she carries it in her pocket. I do believe there is a spell about the thing."

"Well, it isn't a spell that does the child harm, anyhow," I always replied to him, "for certainly never in this world did a child grow strong and tall and beautiful faster than she is growing. You have it so firmly fixed in your head that she is n't a mortal child, like other children, that you can't see anything connected with her as it really is."

I was not conscious of the feeling, but a deep-rooted jealousy of Jim was already growing up in my heart, and distorting my thoughts of both him and Ally. Gentle and loving as she always was to every human being, there was a certain spontaneous, exuberant overflow of affection toward Jim, which made her manner to every one else seem cold by contrast. I was not sure, but it seemed to me that even dear Mrs. Allen felt this. I sometimes saw