"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.
At the end of that time, on Sunday morning, it was announced in the church that Mr. Willcoxen having returned to the county, would resume his lectures on the Wednesday evening following. Dr. Grimshaw looked at Jacquelina, to note how she would receive this news. Poor Jacko had been under Marian's good influences for the week previous, and was, in her fitful and uncertain way, "trying to be good." "As an experiment to please you, Marian," she said, "and to see how it will answer." Poor elf! So she called up no false, provoking smile of joy, to drive Grim frantic, but heard the news of Thurston's arrival with the outward calmness that was perfectly true to the perfect inward indifference.
"She has grown guarded—that is a very bad sign—I shall watch her closer," muttered Grim behind his closed teeth. And when the professor went home that day, his keen, pallid face was frightful to look upon. And many were the comments made by the dispersing congregation.
From that Sunday to the following Wednesday, not one word was spoken of Thurston Willcoxen or his lecture. But on Wednesday morning Dr. Grimshaw entered the parlor, where Jacquelina lingered alone, gazing out of the window, and going up to her side, astonished her beyond measure by speaking in a calm, kind tone, and saying:
"Jacquelina, you have been too much confined to the house lately. You are languid. You must go out more. Mr. Willcoxen lectures this evening. Perhaps you would like to hear him. If so, I withdraw my former prohibition, which was, perhaps, too harsh, and I beg you will follow your own inclinations, if they lead you to go."
You should have seen Jacko's eyes and eyebrows! the former were dilated to their utmost capacity, while the latter were elevated to their highest altitude. The professor's eyebrows were knotted together, and his eyes sought the ground, as he continued:
"I myself have an engagement at Leonardtown this afternoon, which will
detain me all night, and therefore shall not be able to escort you; but
Mrs. Waugh, who is going, will doubtless take you under her charge.
Would you like to go?"