...of malice

Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled as if her performance had now become complete. The next thing she did, however, was to stoop straight down and pluck - quite as if it were all she was there for - a big ugly spray of withered fern. I at once felt sure she had just come out of the copse. She waited for us, not herself, taking a step, and I was conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it was all done in a silence by this time flagrantly ominous. Mrs Grose was the first to break the spell: she threw herself on her knees and, drawing the child to her breast, clasped in a long embrace the little tender yielding body. While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch it - which I did the more intently when I saw Flora's face peep at me over our companion's shoulder. It was serious now - the flicker had left it; but it strengthened the pang with which I at that moment envied Mrs Grose the simplicity of her relation. Still, all this while, nothing more passed between us save that Flora had let her foolish fern again drop to the ground. What she and I had virtually said to each other was that pretexts were useless now. When Mrs Grose finally got up she kept the child's hand, so that the two were still before me; and the singular reticence of our communion was even more marked in the frank look she addressed me. 'I'll be hanged,' it said, 'if I'll speak!'

[The Turn of the Screw, James, H.]