o Homesworth," whispered Frank to Aunt Oldways.

Laura gravitated as surely to the streets and shops, and the great
school of young ladies.

"One taken and the other left," quoted Luclarion, over the packing
of the two small trunks.

"We're both going," says Laura, surprised. "_One_ taken? Where?"

"Where the carcass is," answered Luclarion.

"There's one thing you'll have to see to for yourselves. I can't
pack it. It won't go into the trunks."

"What, Luclarion?"

"What your father said to you that night."

They were silent. Presently Frank answered, softly,--"I hope I
shan't forget that."

Laura, the pause once broken, remarked, rather glibly, that she "was
afraid there wouldn't be much chance to recollect things at Aunt
Oferr's."

"She isn't exactly what I call a heavenly-minded woman," said
Luclarion, quietly.

"She is very much _occupied_," replied Laura, grandly taking up the
Oferr style. "She visits a great deal, and she goes out in the
carriage. You have to change your dress every day for dinner, and
I'm to take French lessons."

The absurd little sinner was actually proud of her magnificent
temptations. She was only a child. Men and women never are, of
course.

"I'm afraid it will be pretty hard to remember," repeated Laura,
with condescension.

"_That's_ your stump!"

Luclarion fixed the steadfast arrow of her look straight upon her,
and drew the bow with this twang.

II.

LUCLARION.

How Mrs. Grapp ever came to, was the wonder. Her having the baby was
nothing. Her having the name for it was the astonishment.

Her own name was Lucy; her husband's Luther: that, perhaps,
accounted for the first syllable; afterwards, whether her mind
lapsed off into combinations of such outshining appellatives as
"Clara" and "Marion," or whether Mr. Grapp having played the
clarionet, and wooed her sweetly with it in her youth, had anything
to do with it, cannot be told; but in those prescriptive days of
quiet which followed the domestic advent, the name did somehow grow
together in the fancy of Mrs. Luther; and in due time the life-atom
which had been born indistinguishable into the natural world, was
baptized into the Christian Church as "Luclarion" Grapp.
Thenceforth, and no wonder, it took to itself a very especial
individuality, and became what this story will partly tell.

Marcus Grapp, who had the start of Luclarion in this "meander,"--as
their father called the vale of tears,--by just