The girl was never allowed to visit her Aunt Annice , although frequently invited . Miss Ashton , however , wrote to her occasionally , and every Christmas sent a box of presents which even Cyrus and Deborah Morgan could not forbid her to accept , although they looked with disapproving eyes and ominously set lips at the dainty , frivolous trifles the actress woman sent . They would have liked to cast those painted fans and lace frills and beflounced lingerie into the fire as if they had been infected rags from a pest-house . The path thus set for Joscelyn 's dancing feet to walk in was indeed sedate and narrow . She was seldom allowed to mingle with the young people of even quiet , harmless Spring Valley ; she was never allowed to attend local concerts , much less take part in them ; she was forbidden to read novels , and Cyrus Morgan burned an old copy of Shakespeare which Paul had given him years ago and which he had himself read and treasured , lest its perusal should awaken unlawful instincts in Joscelyn 's heart . The girl 's passion for reading was so marked that her grandparents felt that it was their duty to repress it as far as lay in their power . But Joscelyn 's vitality was such that all her bonds and bands served but little to check or retard the growth of her rich nature . Do what they might they could not make a Morgan of her . Her every step was a dance , her every word and gesture full of a grace and virility that filled the old folks with uneasy wonder . She seemed to them charged with dangerous tendencies all the more potent from repression . She was sweet-tempered and sunny , truthful and modest , but she was as little like the trim , simple Spring Valley girls as a crimson rose is like a field daisy , and her unlikeness bore heavily on her grandparents . 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 .
XXXXX was not in the kitchen , but the grandmother heard the sound of voices and laughter in the sitting room across the hall .
Joscelyn Josie Morgan Paul Shakespeare Valley daisy day maidenhood reveries