Children are the angels of life; but they are sometimes little demons for all that. To see these two pale little creatures sitting half dead with fright, gazing at her sunny young countenance as if she were an ogre, exasperated Cicely. She jumped up, half laughing, half furious, and at that movement the babies set up a unanimous howl of terror. This fairly daunted her, courageous as she was. She went back to her seat again, having half a mind to cry too. "I am not going to touch you," said Cicely piteously. "Why are you frightened at me? If you will come here I will tell you a story." She was too young to have the maternal instinct so warmly developed as to make her all at once, without rhyme or reason, "fond of" her little half-brothers; but she was anxious to do her duty, and deeply wounded that they did not "take to her." Children, she said to herself with an internal whisper of self-pity, had always taken to her before; and she was not aware of that instinctive resistance, half defiance, half fright, which seems to repel the child-dependant from those whose duty it is to take care of it--most unreasonable, often most cruel, but yet apparently most universal of sentiments. Is it that the very idea of a benefactor, even before the mind is capable of comprehending what it is, sets nature on edge? This was rather a hard lesson for the girl, especially as, while they were still howling, little Annie burst in indignant, and threw herself down beside the children, who clung to her, sobbing, one on each side. "You have made 'em cry, miss," cried Annie, "and missus's orders was as they was never to be allowed to cry. It is very dangerous for boys; it busts their little insides. Did she frighten 'em, then? the naughty lady. Never mind, never mind, my precious! Annie's here."
To see this child spread out upon the floor with these chicks under her wings would have been amusing to a cool spectator. But Cicely did not take it in that light. She waited till the children were pacified, and had returned to their play, and then she took the little nursemaid by the arm, and led her to the door. "You are not to enter this room again or come near the children," she said, in a still voice which made Annie tremble. "If you make a noise I will beat you. Go downstairs to your sister, and I will see you afterwards. Not a word! I have nothing more to say to you here."