Although the Baroness had at first declared that the child brought to her by Sophie Grutchen on that eventful morning was not her own, she had become reconciled to the state of things in a marvellously short {074}time, fancied that, after all, she must have been under some delusion, and in a very few days took kindly to the infant. As he grew up, her fondness for him increased, and, in spite of what has been so often said and written about the unfailing instinct of a mother, she firmly believed him to be her own son. Instead, therefore, of her heart-strings being wrung, as Martha had charitably hoped would have been the case, she was by no means unhappy. True it is, she suffered somewhat from the urchin’s behaviour, but, when it did not happen to affect her own personal comfort, she took his part against the complaints of others, stood up for him when the Baron found fault, and scarcely ever endeavoured to check him in his mischievous and tormenting ways. Thus did Martha find that she had brought a plague upon herself without really securing her revenge, and that the only person who had been punished was the innocent child against whom she had borne no grudge. This was by no means a pleasant reflection, and in some natures would have produced a repentance for the evil done, and a sincere desire to undo it if possible. I regret to be obliged to state that this was by no means the case with Martha. On the contrary, her desire for revenge was unappeased, and the more she discovered that she had failed, the more she resolved that she would, somehow or other, ultimately succeed. With this view, therefore, she once more sought the river side, and summoned to her aid her former friend the water-demon. As there was nothing attractive in her appearance, or delightful in her society, the demon, who knew moreover {075}that his hold upon her was sufficiently secure to make it a matter of indifference to him whether she committed any more crimes or not, did not come until she had adjured him by many entreaties and employed all the incantations of which she was the mistress. When at last he appeared, he treated her with contemptuous coldness, and derided her complaints that she had not enjoyed her promised revenge. In fact he told her, in so many words, that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain, and that she had no business to trouble him any more.