"Yes, no--I ate some bread and cheese at the village; don't fuss; I'd rather wait till supper-time." The door opened, and Mr. Willcoxen entered. Whatever secret anxiety might have weighed upon the minister's heart, no sign of it was suffered to appear upon his countenance, as, smiling cordially, he came in holding out his hand to welcome his cousin and early playmate, expressing equal surprise and pleasure at seeing him. Cloudy had to go over the ground of explanation of his sudden arrival, and by the time he had finished, old Jenny came in, laughing and wriggling with joy to see him. But Jenny did not remain long in the parlor; she hurried out into the kitchen to express her feelings professionally by preparing a welcome feast. "And you are not married yet, Thurston, as great a favorite as you are with the ladies! How is that? Every time I come home I expect to be presented to a Mrs. Willcoxen, and never am gratified; why is that?" "Perhaps I believe in the celibacy of the clergy." "Perhaps you have never recovered the disappointment of losing Miss Le Roy?" "Ah! Cloudy, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones; I suspect you judge me by yourself. How is it with you, Cloudy? Has no fair maiden been able to teach you to forget your boy-love for Jacquelina?" Cloudy winced, but tried to cover his embarrassment with a laugh. "Oh! I have been in love forty dozen times. I'm always in love; my heart is continually going through a circle from one fit to another, like the sun through the signs of the zodiac; only it never comes to anything." "Well, at least little Jacko is forgotten, which is one congratulatory circumstance." "No, she is not forgotten; I will not wrong her by saying that she is, or could be! All other loves are merely the foreign ports, which my heart visits transiently now and then. Lina is its native home. I don't know how it is. With most cases of disappointment, such as yours with Miss Le Roy, I suppose the regret may be short-lived enough; but when an affection has been part and parcel of one's being from infancy up; why, it is in one's soul and heart and blood, so to speak--is identical with one's consciousness, and inseparable from one's life." "Do you ever see her?" "See her! yes; but how?--at each return from a voyage. I may see her once, with an iron grating between us; she disguised with her black shrouding robe and veil, and thinking that she must suffer here to expiate the fate of Dr. Grimshaw, who, scorpion-like, stung himself to death with the venom of his own bad passions. She is a Sister of Mercy, devoted to good works, and leaves her convent only in times of war, plague, pestilence or famine, to minister to the suffering. She nursed me through the yellow fever, when I lay in the hospital at New Orleans, but when I got well enough to recognize her she vanished--evaporated--made herself 'thin air,' and another Sister served in her place." "Have you ever seen her since?"