“That’s a mighty great pity, now, for you can’t cure it.”

“St. Mary!  I will bear this no longer.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to emigrate!”

“I’ll commit suicide.”

“That’s you!  Do!  I should like very well to wear bombazine this cold weather.  Please do it at once, too, if you’re going to, for I should rather be out of deep mourning by midsummer!”

“By heaven, I will pay you for this.”

“Any time at your convenience, Dr. Grimshaw!  And I shall be ready to give you a receipt in full upon the spot!” said the elf, rising.  “Anything else in my line this morning, Dr. Grimshaw?  Give me a call when you come my way!  I shall be much obliged for your patronage,” she continued, curtseying and dancing off toward the door.  “By the way, my dear sir, there is a lecture to be delivered this evening by our gifted young fellow-citizen, Mr. Thurston Willcoxen.  Going to hear him?  I am!  Good-day!” she said, and kissed her hand and vanished.

Grim was going crazy!  Everybody said it, and what everybody says has ever been universally received as indisputable testimony.  Many people, indeed, averred that Grim never had been quite right—­that he always had been queer, and that since his mad marriage with that flighty bit of a child, Jacquelina, he had been queerer than ever.

He would have been glad to prevent Jacquelina from going to the lecture upon the evening in question; but there was no reasonable excuse for doing so.  Everybody went to the lectures, which were very popular.  Mrs. Waugh made a point of being punctually present at every one.  And she took charge of Jacquelina, whenever the whim of the latter induced her to go, which was as often as she secretly wished to “annoy Grim.”  And, in fact, “to plague the Ogre” was her only motive in being present, for, truth to tell, the elf cared very little either for the lecturer or his subjects, and usually spent the whole evening in yawning behind her pocket handkerchief.  Upon this evening, however, the lecture fixed even the flighty fancy of Jacquelina, as she sat upon the front seat between Mrs. Waugh and Dr. Grimshaw.

Jacquelina was magnetized, and scarcely took her eyes from the speaker during the whole of the discourse.  Mrs. Waugh was also too much interested to notice her companions.  Grim was agonized.  The result of the whole of which was—­that after they all got home, Dr. Grimshaw—­to use a common but graphic phrase—­“put his foot down” upon the resolution to prevent Jacquelina’s future attendance at the lectures.  Whether he would have succeeded in keeping her away is very doubtful, had not a remarkably inclement season of weather set in, and lasted a fortnight, leaving the roads nearly impassable for two other weeks.  And just as traveling was getting to be possible, Thurston Willcoxen was called to Baltimore, on his grandfather’s business, and was absent a fortnight.  So, altogether, six weeks had passed without Jacquelina’s finding an opportunity to defy Dr. Grimshaw by attending the lectures against his consent.