"Yes! I may do so in such a case. I must do so! Oh! Heaven knows, I have
occasioned sin enough, without causing more against poor Thurston!"

"You will get ready, then, immediately, dear Lina. Are you sure there
will be no opposition?"

"Certainly not. Why, Cloudy, are you one of those who credit 'raw head
and bloody bones' fables about convents? I have no jailer but my own
conscience, Cloudy. Besides, my year's vows expired yesterday, and I am
free for awhile, before renewing them perpetually," said Jacquelina,
hurrying away to get ready.

"And may I be swung to the yard-arm if ever I let you renew them," said
Cloudy, while he waited for her.

Jacquelina was soon ready, and Cloudy rejoined her in the front entry,
behind the grating of which the good old portress, as she watched the
handsome middy drive off with her young postulant, devoutly crossed
herself, and diligently told her beads.

* * * * *

Commodore Waugh and his family were returning slowly from the South,
stopping at all the principal towns for long rests on their way
homeward.

The commodore was now a wretched, helpless old man, depending almost for
his daily life upon the care and tenderness of Mrs. Waugh.

Good Henrietta, with advancing years, had continued to "wax fat," and
now it was about as much as she could do, with many grunts, to get up
and down stairs. Since her double bereavement of her "Hebe" and her
"Lapwing," her kind, motherly countenance had lost somewhat of its
comfortable jollity, and her hearty mellow laugh was seldom heard.
Still, good Henrietta was passably happy, as the world goes, for she had
the lucky foundation of a happy temper and temperament--she enjoyed the
world, her friends and her creature comforts--her sound, innocent
sleep--her ambling pony, or her easy carriage--her hearty meals and her
dreamy doze in the soft armchair of an afternoon, while Mrs. L'Oiseau
droned, in a dreary voice, long homilies for the good of the commodore's
soul.

Mrs. L'Oiseau had got to be one of the saddest and maddest fanatics that
ever afflicted a family. And there were hours when, by holding up too
graphic, terrific, and exasperating pictures of the veteran's past and
present wickedness and impenitence, and his future retribution, in the
shape of an external roasting in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone--she drove the old man half frantic with rage and fright! And
then she would nearly finish