LE ENDED.

In the meantime Jacquelina had reached home sooner than she had
expected. It was just dark, and the rain was beginning to fall as she
sprang from the carriage and darted into the house.

Mrs. Waugh met her in the hall, took her hand, and said:

"Oh, my dear Lapwing! I'm so glad you have come back, bad as the weather
is; for indeed the professor gives me a great deal of anxiety, and if
you had stayed away to-night I could not have been answerable for the
consequences. There, now; hurry up-stairs and change your dress, and
come down to tea. It is all ready, and we have a pair of canvasback
ducks roasted."

"Very well, aunty! But--is Grim in the house?"

"I don't know, my love. You hurry."

Jacquelina tripped up the stairs to her own room, which she found
lighted, warmed, and attended by her maid, Maria. She took off her
bonnet and mantle, and laid them aside, and began to smooth her hair,
dancing all the time, and quivering with suppressed laughter in
anticipation of her "fun." When she had arranged her dress, she went
down-stairs and passed into the dining-room, where the supper table was
set.

"See if Nace Grimshaw is in his room, and if he is not, we will wait no
longer!" said the hungry commodore, thumping his heavy stick down upon
the floor.

Festus sprang to do his bidding, and after an absence of a few minutes
returned with the information that the professor was not there.

Jacquelina shrugged her shoulders, and shook with inward laughter.

They all sat down, and amid the commodore's growls at Grim's irregular
hours, and Jacquelina's shrugs and smiles and sidelong glances and
ill-repressed laughter, the meal passed. And when it was over, the
commodore, leaning on Mrs. Waugh's arm, went to his own particular sofa
in the back parlor; Mrs. L'Oiseau remained, to superintend the clearing
away of the supper-table; and Jacquelina danced on to the front parlor,
where she found no one but the maid, who was mending the fire.

"Say! did you see anything of the professor while I was gone?" she
inquired.

"Lors, honey, I wish I hadn't! I knows how de thought of it will give me
'liriums nex' time I has a fever."

"Why? What did he do? When was it?"

"Why, chile, jes afore sundown, as I was a carryin' an armful of wood
up-stairs, for Miss Mary's room, I meets de 'fessor a comin' down. I
like to 'a' screamed! I like to 'a' let de wood drap! I like to 'a'
drapped right down myself! It made my heart be