“True to whom, Jacquelina?  What are you talking about?”

“True to this heart—­to this heart, mother! to all that is honest and good in my nature.”

“I don’t understand you at all.”

“Oh, mother, the thought of marrying anybody is unwelcome to me now; and the idea of being married to Grim is abhorrent; is like that of being sold to a master that I hate, or sent to prison for life; it is full of terror and despair.  Oh! oh!—­”

“Don’t talk so wildly, Jacquelina, you make me ill.”

“Do I, Mimmy?  Oh, I didn’t mean to worry you.  Bear up, Mimmy; do try to bear up; don’t fear; suppose he does turn me out.  I am but a little girl, and food and clothing are cheap enough in the country, and any of our neighbors will take me in just for the fun I’ll make them.  La! yes, that they will, just as gladly as they will let in the sunshine.”

“Oh, child, how little you know of the world.  Yes, for a day or two, or a week or two, scarcely longer.  And even if you could find a home, who would give shelter to your poor, sick mother for the rest of her life?”

“Mother! uncle would never deny you shelter upon my account!” exclaimed Jacquelina, growing very pale.

“Indeed he will, my child; he has; he came in here last night and warned me to pack up and leave the house.”

“He will not dare—­even he, so to outrage humanity and public opinion and everything he ought to respect.”

“My child, he will.  He has set his heart upon making Nace Grimshaw his successor at Luckenough, that if you disappoint him in this darling purpose, there will be no limit to his rage and his revenge.  And he will not only send us from his roof, but he will seek to justify himself and further ruin us by blackening our names.  Your wildness and eccentricity will be turned against us and so distorted and misrepresented as to ruin us forever.”

“Mother! mother! he is not so wicked as that.”

“He is furious in his temper and violent in his impulses—­he will do all that under the influence of disappointment and passion, however he may afterwards repent his injustice.  You must not disappoint him, Jacquelina.”

“I disappoint him?  Why, Mimmy, Luckenough does not belong to me.  And if he wants Grim to be his successor, why, as I have heard aunty ask him, does he not make him his heir?”

“There are reasons, I suspect, my dear, why he cannot do so.  I think he holds the property by such a tenure, that he cannot alienate it from the family.  And the only manner in which he can bestow it upon Dr. Grimshaw, will be through his wife, if the doctor should marry some relative.”

“That is it, hey?  Well!  I will not be made a sumpter-mule to carry this rich gift over to Dr. Grimshaw—­even if there is no other way of conveyance.  Mother! what is the reason the professor is such a favorite with uncle?”

“My dear, I don’t know, but I have often had my suspicions.”