I demanded, she refused to let me see."

"And very properly, too. What right had you to make such a 'demand?'"
said Mrs. Waugh, indignantly.

"I was not addressing my remarks to you, madam," retorted the professor.

"That will not keep me from making a running commentary upon them,
however," responded the lady.

"Hold your tongue, Henrietta. Go on, Nace. I swear you are enough to
drive a peaceable man mad between you," said the commodore, bringing his
stick down emphatically. "Well what next?"

"On my attempting to take it from her she put it in her mouth and
swallowed it."

"Yes! and then he seized me and shook me, as if I had been a
fine-bearing little plum tree in harvest time."

"And served you right, I begin to think, you little limb, you. What was
it you had, you little hussy?"

"An assignation, he says, and he ought to know--being a professor."

"Don't mock us, Minx! Tell us instantly what were the contents of that
note?"

"As if I would tell you even if I could. But I couldn't tell you even if
I would. Haven't the least idea what sort of a note it was, from a note
of music to a 'note of hand,' because I had to swallow it as I swallowed
the Ogre at the church--without looking at it. And it is just as
indigestible! I feel it like a bullet in my throat yet!" And that was
all the satisfaction they could get out of Jacko.

"I should not wonder if you had been making a fool of yourself, Nace,"
said the commodore, who seemed inclined to blow up both parties.

"I hope, sir," said the professor, with great assumption of dignity,
"that you now see the necessity of forbidding that impertinent young
coxcomb the house."

"Shall do nothing of the sort, Grim. Thurston has no more idea of
falling in love with little Jacko than he has with her mother or
Henrietta, not a bit more." And then the commodore happening to turn his
attention to the two gaping negroes, with a flourish of his stick sent
them about their business, and left the room.

The next evening Thurston repaired to the mossy dell in the expectation
of seeing Marian, who, of course, did not make her appearance.

The morning after, filled with disappointment and mortifying conjecture
as to the cause of her non-appearance, Thurston presented himself before
Jacquelina at Luckenough. He happened to find her alone. With all her
playfulness of character, the poor fairy had too much self-respect to
relate the scene to which she had been exposed the day be