nately.

"There never was any one like you, Jan, for stupidity," was Sibylla's
retort. "I am young and pretty, and a bride; and they are two faded old
maids."

"Dress 'em up young, and they'll look young," answered Jan, with
composure. "Give 'em a bit of pleasure for once, Sibylla."

"I'll see," impatiently answered Sibylla. "Jan, how came Nancy to go off
with the Mormons? Tynn says she packed up her things in secret, and
started."

"How came the rest to go?" was Jan's answer. "She caught the fever too,
I suppose."

"What Nancy are you talking of?" demanded Lionel. "Not Nancy from here!"

"Oh, Lionel, yes! I forgot to tell you," said Sibylla. "She is gone
indeed. Mrs. Tynn is so indignant. She says the girl must be a fool!"

"Little short of it," returned Lionel. "To give up a good home here for
the Salt Lake! She will repent it."

"Let 'em all alone for _that_," nodded Jan, "I'd like to pay an hour's
visit to 'em, when they have been a month in the place--if they ever get
to it."

"Tynn says she remembers, when that Brother Jarrum was here in the
spring, that Nancy made frequent excuses for going to Deerham in the
evening," resumed Sibylla.

"She thinks it must have been to frequent those meetings in Peckaby's
shop."

"I thought the man, Jarrum, had gone off, leaving the mischief to die
away," observed Lionel.

"So did everybody else," said Jan. "He came back the day that you were
married. Nancy's betters got lured into Peckaby's, as well as Nancy," he
added. "That sickly daughter at Chalk Cottage, she's gone."

Lionel looked very much astonished.

"No!" he uttered.

"Fact!" said Jan. "The mother came to me the morning after the flitting,
and said she had been seduced away. She wanted to telegraph to Dr.
West--"

Jan stopped dead, remembering that Sibylla was present, as well as
Lionel. He leaped off the sofa.

"Ah, we shall see them all back some day, if they can only contrive to
elude the vigilance of the Mormons. I'm off, Lionel; old Poynton will
think I am not coming to-day. Good-bye, Sibylla."

Jan hastened from the room. Lionel stood at the window, and watched him
away. Sibylla glided up to her husband, nestling against him.

"Lionel, tell me. Jan never would, though I nearly teased his life out;
and Deborah and Amilly persisted that they knew nothing. _You_ tell me."

"Tell you what, my dearest?"

"After I came home in the winter, there were strange whispers about papa
and that Chalk