ally
restless, frivolous, and eager for perpetual gayety. Distrusting the
sort of life which he knew his daughter would lead under her aunt's
roof, and at the same time gratefully remembering his sister's
affectionate devotion toward his dying wife and her helpless infant,
Major Yelverton had attempted to make a compromise, which, while it
allowed Lady Westwick the close domestic intercourse with her niece that
she had earned by innumerable kind offices, should, at the same time,
place the young girl for a fixed period of every year of her minority
under the corrective care of two such quiet old-fashioned guardians as
his brother and myself. Such is the history of the clause in the will.
My friend little thought, when he dictated it, of the extraordinary
result to which it was one day to lead.

For some years, however, events ran on smoothly enough. Little Jessie
was sent to an excellent school, with strict instructions to the
mistress to make a good girl of her, and not a fashionable young lady.
Although she was reported to be anything but a pattern pupil in respect
of attention to her lessons, she became from the first the chosen
favorite of every one about her. The very offenses which she committed
against the discipline of the school were of the sort which provoke a
smile even on the stern countenance of authority itself. One of these
quaint freaks of mischief may not inappropriately be mentioned here,
inasmuch as it gained her the pretty nickname under which she will be
found to appear occasionally in these pages.

On a certain autumn night shortly after the Midsummer vacation, the
mistress of the school fancied she saw a light under the door of the
bedroom occupied by Jessie and three other girls. It was then close
on midnight; and, fearing that some case of sudden illness might
have happened, she hastened into the room. On opening the door, she
discovered, to her horror and amazement, that all four girls were out
of bed--were dressed in brilliantly-fantastic costumes, representing the
four grotesque "Queens" of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs, familiar
to us all on the pack of cards--and were dancing a quadrille, in
which Jessie sustained the character of The Queen of Hearts. The next
morning's investigation disclosed that Miss Yelverton had smuggled the
dresses into the school, and had amused herself by giving an impromptu
fancy ball to her companions, in imitation of an entertainment of the
same kind at w