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 him by asking:  “If hell was so horrible to hear of for a little while, what must it be to feel forever and ever?”

They had reached Charleston, on their way home.  Mrs. L’Oiseau, too much fatigued to persecute her uncle for his good, had gone to her chamber.

The commodore was put comfortably to bed.

And Mrs. Waugh took the day’s paper, and sat down by the old man’s side, to read him the news until he should get sleepy.  As she turned the paper about, her eyes fell upon the same paragraph that had so agitated Marian.  Now, Henrietta was by no means excitable—­on the contrary, she was rather hard to be moved; but on seeing this announcement of the arrest of Mr. Willcoxen, for the crime with which he was charged, an exclamation of horror and amazement burst from her lips.  In another moment she had controlled herself, and would gladly have kept the exciting news from the sick man until the morning.

But it was too late—­the commodore had heard the unwonted cry, and now, raised upon his elbow, lay staring at her with his great fat eyes, and insisting upon knowing what the foul fiend she meant by screeching out in that manner?