The effervescent spirits of the elf had to expend themselves in the same way.  As a child she had ever been as remarkable for surprising feats of agility as for fun, frolic, mischief, and diablerie.  And every one of these traits augmented with her growth.  Feats of agility became a passion with her—­her airy spirit seemed only to find its full freedom in rapid motion in daring flights, in difficult achievements, and in hair-breadth escapes.  Everything that she read of in that way, which could possibly be imitated, was attempted.  She had her bows and arrows, and by original fitness, as well as by constant practice, she became an excellent markswoman.  She had her well-trained horse, and her vaulting bars, and made nothing of flying over a high fence or a wide ditch.  But her last whim was the most eccentric of all.  She had her lance.  And, her favorite pastime was to have a small ring suspended from a crossbeam, and while riding at full speed, with her light lance balanced in her hand, to catch this ring and bear it off upon the point of that lance.  In feats of agility alone she excelled, not in those of strength—­that airy, fragile form was well fitted for swiftness and sureness of action, yet not for muscular force.  Her uncle and Grim indulged her in all these frolics—­her uncle in great delight; Grim, under the protest that they were unworthy of an immortal being with eternity to prepare for.

In these five past years, Cloudesley had been at sea, and had only returned home once—­namely, at the end of the stated three years.  He had been received with unbounded joy by his child-friend; had brought her his outgrown suit of uniform; had spent several months at Luckenough, and renewed his old delightful intimacy with its little heiress presumptive, and at length had gone to sea again for another three years’ voyage.  And it must be confessed that Jacquelina had found the second parting more grievous than the first.  And this time Cloudesley had fully shared her sorrow.  He had been absent a year, when, upon one night the old mansion, that had withstood the storms of more than two hundred winters, was burned to the ground!

The fire broke out in the kitchen.  How, no one knew exactly.

Be the cause as it may, upon the evening of the fire Jacquelina had gone to her room—­she had an apartment to herself now—­and feeling for the first time in her life some little uneasiness about her uncle’s “whim” of wedding her to Grim, she had walked about the floor for some time in much disquietude of mind and body; then she went to a wardrobe, and took out Cloudy’s treasured first uniform, and held it up before her.  How small it looked now; why, it was scarcely too large for herself!  And how much Cloudy had outgrown it!  It had fitted him nicely at sixteen, now he was twenty-one, and in two years more he would be home again!  Smiling to herself, and tossing her charming head, as at some invisible foe, she said: