Her first interpretation of this had been that of a mere baby,
but it had filled her being with detestation of him, and curious
doubts of her mother. Donal's mother, who was good and beautiful,
would not let him come to see her and kept Donal away from him.
If the Lady Downstairs was good, too, then why did laugh and
talk to him and seem to like him? She had thought this over for
hours--sometimes wakening in the night to lie and puzzle over
it feverishly. Then, as time went by, she had begun to remember
that she had never played with any of the children in the Square
Gardens. It had seemed as though this had been because Andrews
would not let her. But, if she was not fit to play with Donal,
perhaps the nurses and governesses and mothers of the other children
knew about it and would not trust their little girls and boys to
her damaging society. She did not know what she could have done
to harm them--and Oh! how COULD she have harmed Donal!--but there
must be something dreadful about a child whose mother knew bad
people--something which other children could "catch" like scarlet
fever. From this seed other thoughts had grown. She did not remain
a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, picked up hints
and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert reasoning
which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid little
girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played with
any more "because of Lord Coombe" set a spark to a train.
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