"Exactly; neither now, nor ever," repeated Sir Jekyl; "and we both know it can't possibly be poor--I mean anyone concerned in that transaction; so the likeness must be accidental, and therefore of no earthly significance--eh?" Lady Alice, with elevated brows, fiddled in silence with some crumbs on the table with the tip of her thin finger. "I suppose Beatrix is ready; may I ring the bell?" "Oh! here she is. Now, bid grandmamma good-night," said the Baronet. So slim and pretty Beatrix, in her cloak, stooped down and placed her arms about the neck of the old lady, over whose face came a faint flush of tender sunset, and her old grey eyes looked very kindly on the beautiful young face that stooped over her, as she said, in a tone that, however, was stately-- "Good-bye, my dear child; you are warm enough--you are certain?" "Oh! yes, dear grandmamma--my cloak, and this Cashmere thing." "Well, darling, good-night. You'll not forget to write--you'll not fail? Good-night, Beatrix, dear--good-bye." "Good-night," said the Baronet, taking the tips of her cold fingers together, and addressing himself to kiss her cheek, but she drew back in one of her whims, and said, stiffly, "There, not to-night. Good-bye, Jekyl." "Well," chuckled he, after his wont, "another time; but mind, you're to come to Marlowe." He did not care to listen to what she replied, but he called from the stairs, as he ran down after his daughter-- "Now, mind, I won't let you off this time; you really must come. Good-night, _au revoir_--good-night." I really think that exemplary old lady hated the Baronet, who called her "little mamma," and invited her every year, without meaning it, most good-naturedly, to join his party under the ancestral roof-tree. He took a perverse sort of pleasure in these affectionate interviews, in fretting her not very placid temper--in patting her, as it were, wherever there was a raw, and in fondling her against the grain; so that his caresses were cruel, and their harmony, such as it was, amounted to no more than a flimsy deference to the scandalous world. But Sir Jekyl knew that there was nothing in this quarter to be gained in love by a different tactique; there was a dreadful remembrance, which no poor lady has ostrich power to digest, in the way; it lay there, hard, cold, and irreducible; and the morbid sensation it produced was hatred. He knew that "little mamma," humanly speaking, ought to hate him. His mother indeed she was not; but only the step-mother of his deceased wife. Mother-in-law is not always a very sweet relation, but with the prefix "step" the chances are, perhaps, worse. There was, however, as you will by-and-by see, a terrible accident, or something, always remembered, gliding in and out of Wardlock Manor like the Baronet's double, walking in behind him when he visited her, like his evil genius, and when they met affectionately, standing by his shoulder, black and scowling, with clenched fist.