Now it must not be inferred from this that there was unmitigated antagonism between the wild child and her solemn uncle-in-law, but there was that which was far more exasperating, a capricious and fretful attraction. Sometimes highly amused or deeply interested in the child’s strong, keen, and original genius, he would take her into great favor for days together, keep her always with him in his study, open to her hungry and greedy mind stores of food, win her affections, and then, at some fancied irreverence or impropriety on her part, would shake her from his hand as though she had been a viper, and drive her from the room.[3] And she would fly from the house, stung and suffering, to take refuge in the dark woods, among the grey rocks, or on the gravelly beach of the surging bay. The wild child took to the wild scenes of nature, as naturally as the squirrel takes to the trees, the bird to the air, or the fish to the water; and soon she was at home there, soon she learned to climb a tree with the swiftness and agility of a monkey; soon she learned, alone, to launch the boat, and wield the oar with a skill and grace that nothing but instinct could have taught, and in the very spirit of adventure she would make long voyages of discovery up and down the shores of the bay. And if a storm was brewing, if the sky was darkened and the thunder muttering in the distance, if danger was ahead, so much the more tempting and exciting was the voyage to the fearless child. The same spirit of adventure and inquiry would lead down a darksome forest-path, into the deepest dells, and most tangled thickets, and far away into the wildest solitudes of the wilderness; and the close hiss of a serpent, or the distant growl of a wolf, would only send color to the lips and cheeks, and light to the eyes of the girl, whose ardent soul panted for excitement. Do you ask where she got her fiery blood from? I do not know exactly, perhaps the spark was transmitted from some Egyptian long since. All I can tell is, that the same wild spirit of adventure had incited several of her ancestors from time to time to rebellion against church and state, had sent the founder of the American branch into the new country, and now occasionally broke out in a solitary member of the house, as in Hagar. And where was Sophie while her little charge roamed over river, creek, and bay, forest, moor, and rock, at large? Absorbed in the care of her lunatic husband, fancying Hagar safe at play, she remained in total ignorance of the child’s woodland sports and salt-water voyages. Footnote 3: Some people who are not lunatics treat their children in a less degree in the same capricious way; alternating unreasonable fondness with unmerited harshness; and nothing can be more fatal to the temper and character of a child.