You are not like them. This is your proper sphere. I have made it so. I have fed you poison, by scruple and grain. Now comes the larger dose.

He turns and takes a book from his shelves, then hands it to me, pressing my fingers hard about it.

he says, replacing his glasses. Your sight shall save my own. Your hand shall be my hand. For you come here with naked fingers, while in the ordinary world—the commonplace world, outside this chamber—the men who handle vitriol and arsenic must do so with their flesh guarded.

My eyes—do you look at my eyes, Maud. He takes off his spectacles and brings his face to mine; and I flinch, as once before, from the sight of his soft and naked face—yet see now, too, what the coloured lenses hide: a certain film, or milkiness, upon the surface of his eye. My eyes grow weak, he say[...]

I have laboured so long among poisons I am immune to them, and my aim has been to make you immune, that you might assist me.

and proper study. There is no work on the subject so perfect as this will be, when it is complete. I have devoted many years to its construction and revision; and shall devote many more, as the work requires it.

Well, I am more than that. I am a curator of poisons. These books—look, mark them! mark them well!—they are the poisons I mean. And this— Here he reverently puts his hand upon the great pile of ink-stained papers that litter his desk—this is their Index.

This will guide others in their collection

You do well to be. For here is fearful matter. You think me a scholar, hmm?

Yes, sir.

then, two years. My cheek is round as a childs, and my voice is high. I have not yet begun to bleed as women do.

Well, Maud, says my uncle. At last you cross the finger of brass, and come to my books. You are about to learn the proper quality of your vocation. Are you afraid?

A little, sir.

One day I arrive at my uncles room to find my little desk removed, and a place made ready for me among his books. He sees my look, and beckons me to him.

Take off your gloves, he says. I do, and shudder to touch the surfaces of common things. It is a cold, still, sunless day. I have been at Briar,

If the frame strikes the velvet lining of the wooden box too hard, I will take it out and set it down carefully again.

Mrs Stiles watches me do it, with a curious expression. I never lie quite still until Barbara comes.

I do it that night, and the night which

follows, and the night which follows that; at last, as a clock must tick to a regular beat, I find I must do it or lie fretful in my bed. And then, the portrait must be set down gently, with its ribbon quite uncreased.

Let me kiss mama good-night, I say one time, unlocking my box. But I do it only to torment Mrs Stiles. I raise the picture to my lips and, while she looks on, thinking me sorry—I hate you, I whisper, my breath tarnishing the gold.

My proper mother I hate. Didnt she forsake me, before anyone? I keep her portrait in a little wooden box beside my bed; but her sweet white face has nothing of me in it, and I grow to loathe it.

My old life grows shadowy in proportion to the new—or, sometimes emerges to darken or trouble it, in dreams and half-memories, just as those smudged strokes of forgotten lessons now and then start out upon the pages of my copy-book.

says Mrs Stiles, with a laugh. Why, I dare say your place at the madhouse has been filled by a new little girl with a happier temper. I am sure, they were glad to be rid of you. In time, I believe her. I begin to forget.