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    The Turn of the Screw
    The Turn of the Screw
    The Turn of the Screw
    Ebook224 pages4 hours

    The Turn of the Screw

    By Henry James

    3.5/5

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    HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

    ‘The place, with its grey sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theatre after the performance-all strewn with crumpled playbills.’

    Revered as one of the greatest ghost stories ever told, James’s The Turn of the Screw is an eerie Victorian masterpiece.

    When an inexperienced governess goes to work at Bly, a country house in Essex to look after a young boy Miles and his sister Flora, all manner of strange events begin to occur. The governess spots a ghostly man and woman around the grounds and is told by the housekeeper that the valet and previous governess haunt the house. It soon becomes clear that the children are inexplicably connected to these ghosts in some way and the young governess struggles to protect the children, although from exactly what, she is not sure.

    Exploring the psychological and sexual fears of an era, this ambiguous, suspenseful and anxiety-inspiring novella remains one of Henry James’s most well-known tales.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateMay 31, 2012
    ISBN9780007477548
    Author

    Henry James

    Henry James (1843–1916) was an American writer, highly regarded as one of the key proponents of literary realism, as well as for his contributions to literary criticism. His writing centres on the clash and overlap between Europe and America, and The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as his most notable work.

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    Reviews for The Turn of the Screw

    3.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Chilling! That ending is utterly chilling!
    • 4/5
      Another genre classic that I hadn't read for a long time-and this time with good reason. James' way with a convoluted sentence often makes me want to scream, and having to backtrack to work out his intended focus does not make for a smooth flow in reading experience.

      That said, there is a definite power in this tale, and it builds nicely in dread and atmosphere to a chilling conclusion. It is definitely a classic of the genre, but the movie THE INNOCENTS showed how it could have been done in a more straightforward, yet still distinctly superior, fashion, and Peter Straub's retelling in GHOST STORY is also a superior version.

      Could easily have been a 5 star tale, and saying that, I've nudged it up from 3 to 4 this time around. It could be a long, long time before I want to read it again though.
    • 2/5
      A tale of a ghost in Victorian England.
    • 3/5
      Written in 1898 and republished numerous times Turn of the Screw has also been adapted for the stage, television and the big screen. Someone told me it was even mentioned in an episode of "Lost" (I wouldn't know). James's technique is to tell the story within a frame - one story within another. We are first introduced to a man at a Christmas party telling a tale of a governess. From there we are in the story, told from the point of view of the governess. She has been hired to look after two small children after their parents are killed and they are sent to live on an uncle's estate. Soon after the governess's arrival she starts to notice strange occurances, shadowy figures stalking the grounds. She learns they are former lovers and hired hands, back to supposedly recreate their relationship through the children.While James uses words like "hideous", "sinister", "detestable", and "dangerous", there is great debate as to exactly what he is describing as so terrible. He refers to evil again and again, but his ghosts are not the usual spectors. They only hint at danger rather than taking action and "attacking". The other great debate is whether the governess is insane (or goes insane while at Bly). Because no one else really backs up her ghost sightings you have to wonder.
    • 2/5
      Nogal moeilijk verhaal over verschijningen; de lezer wordt op het verkeerde been gezet. Thema's: onschuld kinderen, overbescherming door volwassenen.
    • 5/5
      eBook

      Reading The Turn of the Screw is like few other reading experiences I've ever had. It's perhaps most similar to Faulkner's unwillingness to explicitly explore the trauma driving his characters, but taken to an extreme far beyond that. Does James truly know what is happening in the story? Perhaps, but given that the governess, despite her overwhelming certainty in her own beliefs, is one of literature's least-trustworthy narrators, it is impossible for any reader to have total certainty about any part of her story.

      It's her certainty, paradoxically, that makes the governess such a compelling character. Presented with events she doesn't fully comprehend, she leaps to conclusions with a startling suddenness, and once adopted, treats those conclusions as absolute facts. It is, in fact, her certainty that leads to so much doubt on the part of the reader, even as it is responsible for the creation of the story itself. Clearly, the story as written, whether true or not, is the governess' creation. Throughout, she fills in every narrative gap, cutting off the statements of others so as to complete their statements herself, or painting in vivid terms the motivations and imaginings of characters that would otherwise have remained hidden. As readers, we're not allowed our own suppositions about the other characters or the events of the story. The governess tells us what they say, think, believe, and do, leaving us only a binary option, befitting greatly the way her own mind works: do we believe her or not?

      No matter our efforts, we can never really know if there were ghosts at Bly Manor, but in the end, that's irrelevant. The ghosts exist inside the governess' head, perhaps not as the spirits of the former governess and her lover, but at least in the form of the world constructed within the current governess' head. In a strange way, she is both narrator and reader of her own story, not only telling us what is happening, but simultaneously inviting us to join her in her own understanding of what she witnesses.
    • 3/5
      I've hesitated for a while now on writing this review. For one thing, I had to re-read the book. I "read" it first as a recording in my car. While that often works quite well (I highly recommend Frank Muller's reading of Moby Dick), it didn't seem to work here. I had a little trouble following the characters' motivations and felt like I was missing something. When I got to one very dramatic, tension-filled moment during a "driveway moment," I turned off my car, excited about what would happen next. When I got back into the car later, all I heard was "The End." I backed the CD up, listened to the final scene again, but that was it. Really?

      So I decided to give it another try. I'd heard that some work by Henry James is important to find in its first edition, because he made changes later in life that aren't really improvements. I checked online and looked through the 4 or 5 editions in my local library, but all the versions I found ended with the same line (I don't want to repeat the line here because it gives a major plot twist away, but I will say that the story never returns to the frame story it opens with).

      I re-read the book on my kindle, and I enjoyed it much more than the recorded version. The tension between whether the ghosts are really haunting the estate or whether the governess is making it all up (and what her motivations might be for doing so) comes through much stronger, and that's such a fascinating thread throughout the story. But I still felt let down by the ending. There's not really any foreshadowing of the event, which seems to jump out of nowhere in only the last SIX WORDS of the book. There's no explanation of what happens afterward, no denouement of any kind. It just... ends.

      So, while I liked the book as a whole, I might "Jane Eyre" this one, meaning that I'll likely invent a new ending for it in my head to feel a little more satisfied.
    • 4/5
      A horror classic. The story is conducive to so many readings; the most obvious question, that of the narrator's sanity, gives rise to two completely different but equally compelling narratives. There is a lot of complexity packed into this short novel, and it is clear why it continues to be of interest to literary critics and readers alike. Of course, it hails from the Victorian era, so you have to be willing to wade through the overly verbose inner monologue and the ludicrously heightened displays of emotion. These can make it a bit of a chore to read, but the bones of this story are rock-solid. And to be fair, it's hard to imagine the crucial atmosphere, full of traumatic secrets and implied confessions, remaining intact without the sense of aristocratic Victorian propriety.

      I will say that this was not an emotionally satisfying read. Whether supernatural or not, there is a very real terror that permeates this story: the theme of children helpless and voiceless in the face of abuse from their caretakers. For a new parent especially, it's deeply upsetting, and it is delivered without any final catharsis. I was left with just a sense of hopelessness and loss at the end, and I was happy to have my son in my arms to hold.
    • 2/5
      I've read [Washington Square] (which I liked) and [Portrait of a Woman] which I didn't like - now here's another one by Henry James that I didn't like.This is about a governess who takes care of two children and the landlord or master or whatever is not around - and then she sees dead people (ghosts) (former employees) - or does she? And do the children see the manifestations? There's nothing all that shocking about these ghost's - but I wondered about the children's behavior. There was something eerie about them, but I couldn't put my finger on it exactly - and of course the ending is up to discussion, and I won't go there. No need to, because frankly, half way through I was quite indifferent. All the repetitions and speculations and strange conversations…It was too much. The writing is very "rich" or "complex" and I struggled with the sentences, having to read them twice or three times and sometimes I just gave up. So even though it's a short novel it took forever to finish. Only because I can be so stubborn sometimes with novels.But as it is a very popular classic I guess other's have very different experience with it….
    • 3/5
      A little novel about a dear little boy and a dear little girl, who are plagued by ghosts of of their previous caretakers, who may or may not have taken part in little perversions. The little children live in a mansion full of little rooms, run by a governess who may be a little crazy. The plot suffers from a little bit of ambiguity. I guess it's time to read a dozen critical essays on this classic. Until then, 3 - more than a little generous - stars.
    • 4/5
      Tangled Victorian prose spoils this otherwise good ghost story. The scene where the governess meets the spectre of Peter Quint on the stairs is genuinely scary. I don't think I would read this one again just for enjoyment, so I'm going to register & release it on BookCrossing.
    • 3/5
      I've never read Henry James, but I love ghost stories, and this is one of the classic ghost stories. I loved the ambiguity-- but the dense language lost me from time to time. You can certainly see its influence on modern horror literature, film and pop culture.
    • 2/5
      I just didn't get it? It didn't get me? It literally did not pull me into the story or hold my true interest. Perhaps a second reading/listening in the future.
    • 4/5
      Is the absence of explanations that makes this book interesting. Too many unknowns and just some answers
    • 3/5
      Having read this, I stared at the last page on my Kindle, trying to decide how I felt about it. And I'm not sure. I enjoyed reading it, I enjoyed the slow unfurling of the menace of it. I liked the ambiguity, being unable to ensure if the governess were going mad or whether there really were ghosts. And I loved the starkness of the ending.

      At the same time, I don't know, there was something lacking. I got to the end and felt -- is that it? Is that all the pay off we're going to get? And yet, at the same time, I didn't think there was anything more that needed to be added. A strange, strange feeling.
    • 3/5
      I had a hard time with the language on this one...tough to follow. And I was continually frustrated with the governness in regards to Miles--if she wanted to know why he was kicked out of school, she should have asked him from the beginning, or written a letter to the headmaster!! It just seemed really odd that she decided not to mention it to him at all when he first came home. There was a lot of communication that was not happening. I did like the psychological element to it, and the possibly unreliable narrator. I was hoping it would be creepier than it turned out to be! I just didn't feel as much of an emotional connection to the characters.
    • 1/5
      I suppose it's because of how old the story is, that I found the mystery/ story unsuspenseful. I've never seen so many unnecessary words used to describe the simplest of things! My mind was left strained and uncaring towards the end.
    • 3/5
      This book by Henry James is a ghost story. The story is told by an unnamed governess who takes her first job as governess of two children. She is delighted with her charges but soon thinks they are scheming against her and then she gets them alone and accuses them. The author's style is ambiguous and I have more questions than answers after reading this novella.
    • 5/5
      Another one of the scariest books I have ever read. Really creepy, perfect for reading around the fire by candlelight.
    • 1/5
      Against my better judgment, I read this, my second Henry James story. So tedious! The exquisite sensitivities of his protagonist are absurd and prevent her from achieving a simple solution on every page. The protagonist and James' prose were exasperating enough to overwhelm the psychological tension and creepiness that this story is supposed to exhibit so well. William remains my favorite of the James brothers, for sure. I'll do my best to avoid Henry in the future.
    • 4/5
      Any writer can make a cemetery or haunted house scary, but a good writer can make terrifying the absolutely ordinary. Henry James does this in Turn of the Screw, which is a ghost story about a governess who finds herself stuck with loving but haunted charges.This mini-novel is densely written, so if you're fresh off Stephen King and want blood, gore, and one-liners, you're not going to find it here. Turn of the Screw is an old-fashioned gothic story, full of expensive manors and apparitions in the study. But if you can get through the dense language, you'll find a terrific atmosphere. At first everything will seem normal, but a sense of unease will creep up on you. You'll realize that there's something not quite right with the children or the governess. You'll feel the macabre before you can even put a name to it, and you'll start to question what is real and what is psychological. This is horror the way it used to be, and the way it should be again.
    • 5/5
      Turn of the Screw is the classic story of the unreliable narrator. A governess is given charge of two children on a rather isolated estate in England. She has taken the job because it was offered by a man she has romanticized, a man she wants to impress, a man who is conspicuously absent at the estate. The two precocious children are mysterious in their beauty, their behavior, and their background. They have a bond with each other, as well as with one staffmember that borders on collusion. They have secrets, revealed in bits about their previous governess and a licentious groundskeeper who had inappropriate relationships, implied in a Victorian manner. The two predecessors, though dead, figure prominently in the story as the heroine must protect the children from their ghosts. James's method of relating the story through a third generation narrator brings into question whether the ghosts are "real" or the illusion of the governess, who, throughout the story, is defending herself. The opening chapter may be overlooked for its importance as it only introduces the thrilling tale, but much has been speculated on James's intent in using a narrator who is the friend of a man who once loved the governess, who may edit the story to defend him who may have edited the story that came from the governess herself. Love may make you do crazy things, which is why the governess's great threat is questionable in the first place. The story may be my favorite of James's works because it is different from his longer novels. He uses the unreliable narrator, in a style like Poe's, and implied psychology, leaving ambiguity for the reader to interpret.
    • 1/5
      I've never read any Henry James before (a terrible admission for an English graduate) so I really wanted to love this book. I didn't.I thought the language was stilted and unnecessary, the story was something and nothing hugely padded out with superfluous narrative and the characters two dimensional. Plus it didn't scare me at all. Some ghost story!!
    • 4/5
      I don't think it has to be interpreted as either/or imagination or ghosts. I think it can be both. I also think there's some interesting things implied about the relationship between the governess and the older boy.
    • 4/5
      Very interesting gothic ghost (maybe?) story. Wonderful unreliable narrator who may be mad and imagining the whole thing. Or maybe the ghosts are real. Or perhaps she is mad, but isn't imagining it at all.
    • 3/5
      I thought I would never make it through the first chapter, but I did and enjoyed finishing it. I made it through 2 books that were 400 pages + during the same time it took me to finish this 120 page book. Tedious, very difficult to read but enjoyable once I got into it. It has since made any semi-difficult read a breeze.
    • 3/5
      I know this is supposed to be a classic psychological gothic-type mystery, but I just didn't find it very effective. Yes, there is a big scary secret revealed, but from my point of view (as a reader and movie-watcher in the 21st century), it just wasn't as unnerving as it was meant to be. Perhaps it should be viewed as the predecessor of all the psychological thrillers around today.
    • 2/5
      A ghost story with a horrific overtone.Victorian obscurity in expression, so not to say anything that could be objectionable. Took me a while to figure out what was worrying the governess.220
    • 2/5
      I have no freaking idea what I just read. It ended--if you can even call that an ending, which is up for debate--and I went back and re-read the last six chapters. It didn't really help.W.T.F????2 stars for a strong start and a cool story idea...he lost me after that.
    • 3/5
      Not much to say about this one. It had great potential to be a really creepy Halloween tale, but just fell flat for me.

      The writing was very good and typical of the writing in the late 1800s.

    Book preview

    The Turn of the Screw - Henry James

    THE TURN OF

    THE SCREW

    Henry James

    CONTENTS

    Cover

    Title Page

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Chapter 24

    Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

    About the Author

    History of Collins

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    CHAPTER 1

    I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal I had at all events a couple of very bad days—found all my doubts bristle again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping swinging coach that carried me to the stopping-place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and I found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country the summer sweetness of which served as a friendly welcome, my fortitude revived and, as we turned into the avenue, took a flight that was probably but a proof of the point to which it had sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something so dreary that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a thoroughly pleasant impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright flowers and the crunch of my wheels on the gravel and the clustered tree-tops over which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant home, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be a matter beyond his promise.

    I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose affected me on the spot as a creature too charming not to make it a great fortune to have to do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I afterwards wondered why my employer hadn’t made more of a point to me of this. I slept little that night—I was too much excited; and this astonished me too, I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the liberality with which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of the best in the house, the great state bed as I almost felt it, the figured full draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot, all struck me—like the wonderful appeal of my small charge—as so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in a relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather brooded The one appearance indeed that in this early outlook might have made me shrink again was that of her being so inordinately glad to see me. I felt within half an hour that she was so glad—stout, simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman—as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she should wish not to show it, and that, with reflexion, with suspicion, might of course have made me uneasy.

    But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect; to watch from my open window the faint summer dawn, to look at such stretches of the rest of the house as I could catch, and to listen, while in the fading dusk the first birds began to twitter, for the possible recurrence of a sound or two, less natural and not without but within, that I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I believed I recognised, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep. But these fancies were not marked enough not to be thrown off, and it is only in the light, or the gloom, I should rather say, of other and subsequent matters that they now come back to me. To watch, teach, form little Flora would too evidently be the making of a happy and useful life. It had been agreed between us downstairs that after this first occasion I should have her as a matter of course at night, her small white bed being already arranged, to that end, in my room. What I had undertaken was the whole care of her, and she had remained just this last time with Mrs. Grose only as an effect of our consideration for my inevitable strangeness and her natural timidity. In spite of this timidity—which the child herself, in the oddest way in the world, had been perfectly frank and brave about, allowing it, without a sign of uncomfortable consciousness, with the deep, sweet serenity indeed of one of Raphael’s holy infants, to be discussed, to be imputed to her and to determine us—I felt quite sure she would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration and wonder as I sat at supper with four tall candles and with my pupil, in a high chair and a bib, brightly facing me between them over bread and milk. There were naturally things that in Flora’s presence could pass between us only as prodigious and gratified looks, obscure and round-about allusions.

    And the little boy—does he look like her? Is he, too, so very remarkable?

    One wouldn’t, it was already conveyed between us, too grossly flatter a child. "Oh, miss, most remarkable. If you think well of this one!"—and she stood there with a plate in her hand, beaming at our companion, who looked from one of us to the other with placid, heavenly eyes that contained nothing to check us.

    Yes; if I do—?

    "You will be carried away by the little gentleman!"

    Well, that, I think, is what I came for—to be carried away. I’m afraid, however, I remember feeling the impulse to add, I’m rather easily carried away. I was carried away in London!

    I can still see Mrs. Grose’s broad face as she took this in. In Harley Street?

    In Harley Street.

    "Well, miss, you’re not the first—and you won’t be the last.

    Oh, I’ve no pretensions, I could laugh, to being the only one. My other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back to-morrow?

    Not to-morrow—Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach, under care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage.

    I forthwith wanted to know if the proper as well as the pleasant and friendly thing wouldn’t therefore be that on the arrival of the public conveyance I should await him with his little sister; a proposition to which Mrs. Grose assented so heartily that I somehow took her manner as a kind of comforting pledge—never falsified, thank heaven!—that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was glad I was there!

    What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the scale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, freshly, a little scared not less than a little proud. Regular lessons, in this agitation, certainly suffered some wrong; I reflected that my first duty was, by the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the sense of knowing me. I spent the day with her out of doors; I arranged with her, to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might show me the place. She showed it step by step and room by room and secret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish talk about it, and with the result, in half an hour, of our becoming tremendous friends. Young as she was I was struck, throughout our little tour, with her confidence and courage, with the way, in empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause, and even on the summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than she asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I left it, and I dare say that to my present older and more informed eyes it would show a very reduced importance. But as my little conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, take all colour out of storybooks and fairy-tales. Wasn’t it just a story-book over which I had fallen a-doze and a-dream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique but convenient house, embodying a few features of a building still older, half-displaced and half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was strangely at the helm!

    CHAPTER 2

    This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an incident that, presenting itself the second evening, had deeply disconcerted me. The first day had been, on the whole, as I have expressed, reassuring; but I was to see it wind up to a change of note. The postbag that evening—it came late—contained a letter for me which, however, in the hand of my employer, I found to be composed but of a few words, enclosing another, addressed to himself, with a seal still unbroken. This, I recognise, is from the head master, and the head master’s an awful bore. Read him, please; deal with him; but mind you don’t report. Not a word. I’m off! I broke the seal with a great effort—so great a one that I was a long time coming to it; took the unopened missive at last up to my room and only attacked it just before going to bed. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress; and it finally got so the better of me that I determined to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose.

    What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school.

    She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly, with a quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back. But aren’t they all—?

    Sent home—yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go back at all.

    Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. They won’t take him?

    They absolutely decline.

    At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me; I saw them fill with good tears. What has he done?

    I cast about; then I judged best simply to hand her my document—which, however, had the effect of making her, without taking it, simply put her hands behind her. She shook her head sadly. Such things are not for me, miss.

    My counsellor couldn’t read! I winced at my mistake, which I attenuated as I could, and opened the letter again to repeat it to her; then, faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my pocket. "Is it really bad?"

    The tears were still in her eyes. Do the gentlemen say so?

    They go into no particulars. They simply express their regret that it should be impossible to keep him. That can have but one meaning. Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on: That he’s an injury to the others.

    At this, with one of the quick turns of simple folk, she suddenly flamed up. "Master Miles!—him an injury?"

    There was such a flood of good faith in it that, though I had not yet seen the child, my very fears made me jump to the absurdity of the idea. I found myself, to meet my friend the better, offering it, on the spot, sarcastically. To his poor little innocent mates!

    It’s too dreadful, cried Mrs. Grose, to say such cruel things! Why, he’s scarce ten years old.

    Yes, yes; it would be incredible.

    She was evidently grateful for such a profession. "See him, miss, first. Then believe it! I felt forthwith a new impatience to see him; it was the beginning of a curiosity that, all the next hours, was to deepen almost to pain. Mrs. Grose was aware, I could judge, of what she had produced in me, and she followed it up with assurance. You might as well believe it of the little lady. Bless her, she added the next moment—look at her!"

    I turned and saw that Flora, whom, ten minutes before, I had established in the schoolroom with a sheet of white paper, a pencil and a copy of nice round O’s, now presented herself to view at the open door. She expressed in her little way an extraordinary detachment from disagreeable duties, looking at me, however, with a great childish light that seemed to offer it as a mere result of the affection she had conceived for my person, which had rendered necessary that she should follow me. I needed nothing more than this to feel the full force of Mrs. Grose’s comparison, and, catching my pupil in my arms, covered her with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement.

    None the less, the rest of the day, I watched for further occasion to approach my colleague, especially as, toward evening, I began to fancy she rather sought to avoid me. I overtook her, I remember, on the staircase; we went down together and at the bottom I detained her, holding her there with a hand on her arm. "I take what you said to me at noon as a declaration that you’ve never known him to be bad."

    She threw back her head; she had clearly by this time, and very honestly, adopted an attitude. "Oh, never known him—I don’t pretend that!"

    I was upset again. "Then you have known him—?"

    Yes indeed, miss, thank God!

    On reflection I accepted this. You mean that a boy who never is—?

    "Is no boy for me!"

    I held her tighter. You like them with the spirit to be naughty? Then, keeping pace with her answer, So do I! I eagerly brought out. But not to the degree to contaminate—

    To contaminate?—my big word left her at a loss.

    I explained it. To corrupt.

    She stared, taking my meaning in; but it produced in her an odd laugh. "Are you afraid he’ll corrupt you?" She put the question with such a fine bold humour that with a laugh, a little silly doubtless, to match her own, I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule.

    But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped up in another place. What was the lady who was here before?

    The last governess? She was also young and pretty—almost as young and almost as pretty, miss, even as you.

    Ah, then I hope her youth and her beauty helped her! I recollect throwing off. He seems to like us young and pretty!

    "Oh, he did, Mrs. Grose assented; it was the way he liked every one! She had no sooner spoken, indeed, than she caught herself up. I mean that’s his way—the master’s."

    I was struck. But of whom did you speak first?

    She looked blank, but she coloured. "Why, of him."

    Of the master?

    Of who else?

    There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I merely asked what I wanted to know. "Did she

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