them she was afraid to confess to her mistakes, and so made them
worse and worse. He discovered that she was very nervous, and that a
sudden noise made her jump and turn white and put her hand to her
heart. He discovered that she would punish him and then try to
please him by saying he need not finish his punishment. He
discovered that she would lose things, like her spectacles, her
handkerchief, or her purse, and then be afraid to confess that she
had lost them and endeavour to proceed without them. He discovered
that she hated to hit him on the hand with a ruler (he scarcely felt
the strokes). He discovered that when his mother or father was in
the room she was terrified lest he should misbehave.

He discovered that she was despised by the servants, who quite
openly insulted her.

All these things fed his sense of power. He did not consider her a
human being at all; she was simply something upon which he could
exercise his ingenuity and cleverness. Mary followed him in whatever
he did; Helen pretended to be superior, but was not. Yes, Miss Jones
was in the hands of her tormentors, and there was no escape for her.

Surely it must have been some outside power that drove Jeremy on.
The children called it "teasing Miss Jones," and the aboriginal
savagery in their behaviour was as unconscious as their daily speech
or fashion of eating their food--some instinct inherited, perhaps,
from the days when the gentleman with the biggest muscles extracted
for his daily amusement the teeth and nails of his less happily
muscular friends.

There were many games to be played with Miss Jones. She always began