ed the paper into her mouth.

He overtook and caught her by the arm, and shaking her roughly,
exclaimed, under his breath:

"Where is it? What have you done with it? You exasperating, unprincipled
little wretch, where is it?"

"'Echo anfers fere?'" mumbled the imp, chewing up the paper, and keeping
her lips tight.

"Give it me! give it me! or I'll be the death of you, you diabolical
little ----!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, shaking her as if he would have
shaken her breath out.

But Jacko had finished chewing up the paper, and she swallowed the pulp
with an effort that nearly choked her, and then opening her mouth, and
inflating her chest, gave voice in a succession of piercing shrieks,
that brought the whole family rushing into the room, and obliged the
professor to relax his hold, and stand like a detected culprit.

For there was the commodore roused up from his sleep, with his gray hair
and beard standing out all ways, like the picture of the sun in an
almanac. And there was Mrs. Waugh, with the great-tooth comb in her
hand. And Mary L'Osieau, with the pantry keys. And the maid, Maria, with
the wooden tray of flour on her head. And Festus, with a bag of meal in
his hands. And all with their eyes and ears and mouths agape with
amazement and inquiry.

"In the fiend's name, what's the matter? What the d----l's broke loose?
Is the house on fire again?" vociferated the commodore, seeing that no
one else spoke; "what's all this about, Nace Grimshaw?"

"Ask your pretty niece, sir!" said the professor, sternly, turning away.

"Oh, it's you, is it, you little termagant you? Oh, you're a
honey-cooler. What have you been doing now, Imp?" cried the old man,
turning fiercely to Jacquelina. "Answer me, you little vixen!--what does
all this mean?"

"Better ask 'the gentlemanly professor' why he seized and nearly shook
the head off my shoulders and the breath out of my bosom!" said
Jacquelina, half-crying, half-laughing.

The commodore turned furiously toward Grim. Shaking a woman's head off
her shoulders, and breath out of her body, in his house, did not suit
his ideas of gallantry at all, rough as he was.

"By heaven! are you mad, sir? What have you been doing? I never laid the
weight of my hand on Jacquelina in all my life, wild as she has driven
me at times. Explain your brutality, sir."

"It was to force from her hand a paper which she has swallowed," said
Dr. Grimshaw, with stern coldness regarding the group.

"S