“Look, look, mamma!  The baby,—­the baby!”

Janet turned instantly, and with a mother’s instinct gave an involuntary cry of alarm.

At the moment when Mrs. Carteret had turned away from the window, and while Mammy Jane was watching Janet, Clara had taken a step forward, and was leaning against the window-sill.  The baby, convulsed with delight, had given a spasmodic spring and slipped from Clara’s arms.  Instinctively the young woman gripped the long skirt as it slipped through her hands, and held it tenaciously, though too frightened for an instant to do more.  Mammy Jane, ashen with sudden dread, uttered an inarticulate scream, but retained self-possession enough to reach down and draw up the child, which hung dangerously suspended, head downward, over the brick pavement below.

“Oh, Clara, Clara, how could you!” exclaimed Mrs. Carteret reproachfully; “you might have killed my child!”

She had snatched the child from Jane’s arms, and was holding him closely to her own breast.  Struck by a sudden thought, she drew near the window and looked out.  Twice within a few weeks her child had been in serious danger, and upon each occasion a member of the Miller family had been involved, for she had heard of Dr. Miller’s presumption in trying to force himself where he must have known he would be unwelcome.

Janet was just turning her head away as the buggy moved slowly off.  Olivia felt a violent wave of antipathy sweep over her toward this baseborn sister who had thus thrust herself beneath her eyes.  If she had not cast her brazen glance toward the window, she herself would not have turned away and lost sight of her child.  To this shameless intrusion, linked with Clara’s carelessness, had been due the catastrophe, so narrowly averted, which might have darkened her own life forever.  She took to her bed for several days, and for a long time was cold toward Clara, and did not permit her to touch the child.

Mammy Jane entertained a theory of her own about the accident, by which the blame was placed, in another way, exactly where Mrs. Carteret had laid it.  Julia’s daughter, Janet, had been looking intently toward the window just before little Dodie had sprung from Clara’s arms.  Might she not have cast the evil eye upon the baby, and sought thereby to draw him out of the window?  One would not ordinarily expect so young a woman to possess such a power, but she might have acquired it, for this very purpose, from some more experienced person.  By the same reasoning, the mockingbird might have been a familiar of the witch, and the two might have conspired to lure the infant to destruction.  Whether this were so or not, the transaction at least wore a peculiar look.  There was no use telling Mis’ ’Livy about it, for she didn’t believe, or pretended not to believe, in witchcraft and conjuration.  But one could not be too careful.  The child was certainly born to be exposed to great dangers,—­the mole behind the left ear was an unfailing sign,—­and no precaution should be omitted to counteract its baleful influence.