rast, it seemed to make her more excellent and lovely.

And thus, while Jacquelina fancied she had a new admirer, Dr. Grimshaw
feared that he had a new rival, and the holy fathers hoped they had a
new convert--Thurston laughed at the vanity of the elf, the jealousy of
the Ogre, and the gullibility of the priests--and sought only escape
from the haunting memory of Marian, and found it not. And finally, bored
and ennuied beyond endurance, he cast about for a plan by which to
hasten his union with Marian. Perhaps it was only that neighborhood she
was afraid of, he thought--perhaps in some other place she would be less
scrupulous. Satan had no sooner whispered this thought to Thurston's ear
than he conceived the design of spending the ensuing autumn in Paris--and
of making Marian his companion while there. Fired with this new idea and
this new hope, he sat down and wrote her a few lines--without address or
signature--as follows:

"Dearest, forgive all the past. I was mad and blind. I have a plan to
secure at once our happiness. Meet me in the Mossy dell this evening,
and let me explain it at your feet."

Having written this note, Thurston scarcely knew how to get it at once
into Marian's hands. To put it into the village post-office was to
expose it to the prying eyes of Miss Nancy Skamp. To send it to Old
Fields, by a messenger, was still more hazardous. To slip it into
Marian's own hand, he would have to wait the whole week until
Sunday--and then might not be able to do so unobserved.

Finally, after much thought, he determined, without admitting the elf
into his full confidence, to entrust the delivery of the note to
Jacquelina.

He therefore copied it into the smallest space, rolled it up tightly,
and took it with him when he went to Luckenough.

He spent the whole afternoon at the mansion house, without having an
opportunity to slip it into the hands of Jacquelina.

It is true that Mrs. Waugh was not present, that good woman being in the
back parlor, sitting at one end of the sofa and making a pillow of her
lap for the commodore's head, which she combed soporifically, while,
stretched at full length, he took his afternoon nap. But Mary L'Oiseau
was there, quietly knotting a toilet cover, and Professor Grimshaw was
there, scowling behind a book that he was pretending to read, and losing
no word or look or tone or gesture of Thurston or Jacquelina, who talked
and laughed and flirted and jested, as if there was no