And in proportion to her love for her own child, grew her jealousy of Benja--nay, not jealousy only, but dislike. Mrs. Darling had foreseen correctly: the jealousy and the dislike had come--the hatred would only too surely follow. Charlotte strove against this feeling. She knew how wrong it was, how disloyal to her husband, how cruel to Benja; and she fought against it well. She would take Benja on her knee and fondle him; and the child grew to love her, to run into her at all moments when he could triumphantly escape from Honour, and she would take him and pretend to hide him, and tell Honour to go into the woods and see if the little wild boy had flown thither. It is true that once or twice, upon some very slight provocation, she had fallen into a storm of passion that literally rendered Honour motionless with alarm, seizing the child somewhat after the manner of a tiger, and beating him furiously. Honour and Benja were alike frightened; even Prance looked on aghast. Matters were not improved by the conduct of the two nurses. If dislike and dissatisfaction had reigned between them when Prance was only an occasional visitor at the house, how much more did it reign now! They did not break frequently into a quarrel, but a perpetual system of what the other servants called "nagging" was kept up between them. Fierce and fiery was the disposition with which each regarded the other; a war of resentment, of antipathy--call it what you will--smouldering ever in their hearts. It did not want fuel. Honour naturally wished Benja to be regarded as first and foremost in right of his seniority and position as the heir. Prance held up the infant as the chief; and it need not be said that she was tacitly, if not openly, supported by Mrs. St. John. It was doubly unfortunate. The squabbles of the nurses need not have done harm, but their rivalry in regard to the children enhanced the feeling in their mistress. To do Mrs. Darling justice, she absolutely discouraged any difference being made, even in thought, between the children, if such came under her notice in her temporary visits at the Hall; and once, when she heard a sneer given by Prance to Honour and Benja, she had called the woman to her privately, and taken her sharply to task. Well, the time went on to Easter. On the Thursday in Passion-week Mr. St. John was expected home; and his wife, who loved him much, anticipated his return in a sort of impassioned eagerness, not the less strong because it was controlled under her usual cold and calm demeanour. The pony-carriage went to the station in the afternoon to meet the train; and Alnwick's mistress took her place at an open window that overlooked the approach, long and long before the carriage could return.