Even Jacquelina had been forced to fly from Luckenough; no one knew wither; some said that she had run away; some knew that she had retired to a convent; some said only to escape the din and turmoil of the world, and find rest to her soul in a few months or years of quiet and silence, and some said she had withdrawn for the purpose of taking the vows and becoming a nun.  Mrs. Waugh knew all about it, but she said nothing, except to discourage inquiry upon the subject.  In the midst of the speculation following Jacquelina’s disappearance, Cloudesley Mornington had come home.  He staid a day or two at Luckenough, a week at Dell-Delight, and then took himself, with his broken heart, off from the neighborhood, and got ordered upon a distant and active service.

There were also other considerations that rendered it desirable for Miriam to reside at Dell-Delight, rather than at Luckenough:  Commodore Waugh would have made a terrible guardian to a child so lately used to the blessedness of a home with her mother—­and withal, so shy and sensitive as to breathe freely only in an atmosphere of peace and affection, and Luckenough would have supplied a dark, and dreary home for her whose melancholy temperament and recent bereavements rendered change of scene and the companionship of other children, absolute necessities.  It was for these several reasons that Mrs. Waugh was forced to consent that Thurston should carry his little adopted daughter to his own home.  Thurston’s household consisted now of himself, Mrs. Morris, his housekeeper; Alice Morris, her daughter; Paul Douglass, his own half-brother; poor Fanny, and lastly, Miriam.

Mrs. Morris was a lady of good family, but decayed fortune, of sober years and exemplary piety.  In closing her terms with Mr. Willcoxen, her one great stipulation had been that she should bring her daughter, whom she declared to be too “young and giddy” to be trusted out of her own sight, even to a good boarding school.

Mr. Willcoxen expressed himself rather pleased than otherwise at the prospect of Miriam’s having a companion, and so the engagement was closed.

Alice Morris was a hearty, cordial, blooming hoyden, really about ten or eleven years of age, but seeming from her fine growth and proportions, at least thirteen or fourteen.

Paul Douglass was a fine, handsome, well-grown boy of fourteen, with an open, manly forehead, shaded with clustering, yellow curls, as soft and silky as a girl’s, and a full, beaming, merry blue eye, whose flashing glances were the most mirth-provoking to all upon whom they chanced to light.  Paul was, and ever since his first arrival in the house had been, “the life of the family.”  His merry laugh and shout were the pleasantest sounds in all the precincts of Dell-Delight.  When Paul first heard that there was to be an invasion of “women and girls” into Dell-Delight, he declared he had rather there had been an irruption of the Goths and Vandals at once—­for if there were any