In feats of agility alone she excelled, not in those of strength--that
airy, fragile form was well fitted for swiftness and sureness of action,
yet not for muscular force. Her uncle and Grim indulged her in all these
frolics--her uncle in great delight; Grim, under the protest that they
were unworthy of an immortal being with eternity to prepare for.
In these five past years, Cloudesley had been at sea, and had only
returned home once--namely, at the end of the stated three years. He had
been received with unbounded joy by his child-friend; had brought her
his outgrown suit of uniform; had spent several months at Luckenough,
and renewed his old delightful intimacy with its little heiress
presumptive, and at length had gone to sea again for another three
years' voyage. And it must be confessed that Jacquelina had found the
second parting more grievous than the first. And this time Cloudesley
had fully shared her sorrow. He had been absent a year, when, upon one
night the old mansion, that had withstood the storms of more than two
hundred winters, was burned to the ground!
The fire broke out in the kitchen. How, no one knew exactly.
Be the cause as it may, upon the evening of the fire Jacquelina had gone
to her room--she had an apartment to herself now--and feeling for the
first time in her life some little uneasiness about her uncle's "whim"
of wedding her to Grim, she had walked about the floor for some time in
much disquietude of mind and body; then she went to a wardrobe, and took
out Cloudy's treasured first uniform, and held it up before her.
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