Yet they loved her and were proud of her . `` Our girl Josie , '' as they called her , was more to them than they would have admitted even to themselves , and in the main they were satisfied with her , although the grandmother grumbled because Josie did not take kindly to patchwork and rug-making and the grandfather would fain have toned down that exuberance of beauty and vivacity into the meeker pattern of maidenhood he had been accustomed to . When Joscelyn was seventeen Deborah Morgan noticed a change in her . The girl became quieter and more brooding , falling at times into strange , idle reveries , with her hands clasped over her knee and her big eyes fixed unseeingly on space ; or she would creep away for solitary rambles in the beech wood , going away droopingly and returning with dusky glowing cheeks and a nameless radiance , as of some newly discovered power , shining through every muscle and motion . Mrs. Morgan thought the child needed a tonic and gave her sulphur and molasses . One day the revelation came . Cyrus and Deborah had driven across the valley to visit their married daughter . Not finding her at home they returned . Mrs. Morgan went into the house while her husband went to the stable . Joscelyn was not in the kitchen , but the grandmother heard the sound of voices and laughter in the sitting room across the hall . `` What company has Josie got ? '' she wondered , as she opened the hall door and paused for a moment on the threshold to listen . As she listened her old face grew grey and pinched ; she turned noiselessly and left the house , and flew to her husband as one distracted . `` Cyrus , Josie is play-acting in the room ... laughing and reciting and going on . I heard her . Oh , I 've always feared it would break out in her and it has ! Come you and listen to her . '' The old couple crept through the kitchen and across the hall to the open parlour door as if they were stalking a thief . Joscelyn 's laugh rang out as they did so ... a mocking , triumphant peal . Cyrus and Deborah shivered as if they had heard sacrilege .
XXXXX had put on a trailing , clinging black skirt which her aunt had sent her a year ago and which she had never been permitted to wear .
Cyrus Deborah Joscelyn Josie day left maidenhood parlour reveries rug-making