gratefully remembering his sister's affectionate devotion toward
his dying wife and her helpless infant, Major Yelverton had
attempted to make a compromise, which, while it allowed Lady
Westwick the close domestic intercourse with her niece that she
had earned by innumerable kind offices, should, at the same time,
place the young girl for a fixed period of every year of her
minority under the corrective care of two such quiet
old-fashioned guardians as his brother and myself. Such is the
history of the clause in the will. My friend little thought, when
he dictated it, of the extraordinary result to which it was one
day to lead.

For some years, however, events ran on smoothly enough. Little
Jessie was sent to an excellent school, with strict instructions
to the mistress to make a good girl of her, and not a fashionable
young lady. Although she was reported to be anything but a
pattern pupil in respect of attention to her lessons, she became
from the first the chosen favorite of every one about her. The
very offenses which she committed against the discipline of the
school were of the sort which provoke a smile even on the stern
countenance of authority itself. One of these quaint freaks of
mischief may not inappropriately be mentioned here, inasmuch as
it gained her the pretty nickname under which she will be found
to appear occasionally in these pages.

On a certain autumn night shortly after the Midsummer vacation,
the mistress of the school fancied she saw a light under the door
of the bedroom occupied by Jessie and three other girls. It was
then close on midnight; and, fearing that some case of sudden
illness might have happened, she hastened into the room. On