“Money can never pay you,” he said, “if you succeed in doing her good, or even in keeping her quiet for any length of time; but to show you that I appreciate your services, I will from this time forward make your salary one thousand dollars per annum as Mrs. Grey’s attendant. It is strange the influence which some people have over her, and strange that you, a girl, can control her, as Alice says you do. Perhaps she recognizes in you something that exists in herself, and so, on the principle that like subdues like, she is subdued by you. The very first time I saw you, there was something in your eyes and the toss of your head which reminded me of her as she was when I first knew her, but of course the resemblance goes no further. I would weep tears of blood sooner than have your young life and bright beauty darkened as Laura’s has been.” When Magdalen received this note she was in a state of wild excitement, and hardly realized what Mr. Grey had written, until she reached the part where he spoke of her resemblance to his wife. “Something in your eyes and the toss of your head.” She read that sentence twice, and her eyes grew larger and darker than their wont as she too saw _herself_ in the motions, and gestures, and even looks of the maniac, whose talk that very day, whether true or false, had sent through her veins a thrill of conjecture so sudden and wonderful, that for an instant she had felt as if she were fainting. Alice had talked but little of her mother’s insanity. It was a great grief to them all, she had said, and she had wished to keep it from Magdalen as long as possible, fearing lest the fact of there being a lunatic in the house might trouble her, as it had done others who came to Beechwood. Of the fancy about the baby she had never offered any explanation, and Magdalen had ceased to think much of it, except as the vagary of a lunatic, until the day when she received the note from Mr. Grey. That afternoon Laura had talked a great deal, fancying herself to be in the cars, and sometimes baby was with her and sometimes it was not. “That is the very last I remember,” she said, apparently talking to herself. “I took the train at Cincinnati, and baby was with me; I left the train, and baby was not with me. I’ve never seen her since, but I think I gave her to a boy. It was ever so long before I got home, and everything was gone, baggage, baby and all. I can’t think any more.”