"'Ill' is perhaps too strong a word. Besides, she has always said she was well."

"Yes. But I know she has been"—in trouble, she was going to say, but stopped—"suffering."

"Perhaps you may be able to nurse her a little now, since she will be obliged to own herself an invalid."

"I shall try. Will you come in for a moment, in the morning?"

"Yes. Good night now. Do not be too anxious."

He went out, glad at heart because of those few words of hers, which showed how naturally she still depended on him, when help of any kind was needed.

Mrs. Costello had lain, during his visit, listening to the faint sound of their voices, which just reached her through the half-open door of her room.

She turned her head restlessly as she listened. "If it could have been," she thought, "he would have been the same to her through all—but the other, how could I tell him even? Truly, I believe he would forgive crime, more readily than misery like mine. And I must tell her."

Lucia came back softly into the room, and to the bedside; looking, with her newly awakened fears, at her mother's face, she saw plainly how worn it was; it seemed, in truth, to have grown years older in the last few weeks. A pang of remorse shot through her heart; she stooped and kissed her with unusual tenderness, and then turned away to hide the tears which self-reproach had brought to her eyes. Mrs. Costello caught her hand, and smiling, asked what news Maurice had brought?

"None, mamma. He came to ask about you."

"But had he nothing to tell you about the Scotts?"

"I forgot to ask him, and I believe he forgot to tell me."

"You must have been very much interested to forget such an event as a party the moment it was over."

"We were only talking about you. Maurice says you have been looking ill."

"Maurice is a foolish boy. I have been a little worried, but that is all."

Lucia gathered all her courage. "But, dear mother, why do you always give me that answer? Why not tell me what it is that troubles you?"

Mrs. Costello shrank back. "Not yet, darling. I am a coward, and should have to tell you a long story. Wait awhile."

"And while I wait, you suffer alone."

"I should not suffer less, my child, if you knew all. For your own sake I have not yet shared my troubles, such as they are, with you; for your own sake I see that I must soon do so. Leave me at present to decide, if I can, what is best for us both."

Lucia was silent. She saw that even this short conversation had disturbed, instead of comforting her mother; she dared not therefore say more, and could only busy herself in arranging everything with affectionate care for her comfort during the night.

Next morning when Maurice came, he was surprised to find Mrs. Costello up, and looking as usual. Lucia's uneasiness had almost melted away in the daylight; she was more gentle and attentive than usual to her mother, but had persuaded herself that with her care, and, above all, with her sympathy, when the promised "long story" should be told, all would come right. She had still, however, enough need of sympathy to make her manner to Maurice such as he liked best. He went away a second time very happy, thinking, "She is but a child. If that fellow were but gone she would soon forget him, and be herself again."

But, alas! "that fellow" showed no intention of going. He came to the Cottage an hour or two later, not however alone, but with Mrs. Bellairs and Bella. The former came to see Mrs. Costello, the latter had affairs of her own with Lucia. Mr. Percy, for once, was decidedly de trop, but after awhile the two girls slipped away and shut themselves up in Lucia's bedroom. The moment the door was closed, Bella burst into a torrent of talk.

"Oh! my dear, I was determined to come to you this morning, but I dare say it was trouble thrown away. Have you any attention to spare from your own affairs for your neighbours?"

"Plenty. How did you enjoy yourself last night?"

"You shall hear. It was a dull enough evening till the very end. There was Maurice looking as black as thunder at May Anderson; and Magdalen Scott and Harry—not flirting, they have not sense enough for that—but making themselves ridiculous; and everybody else as usual."

"Why was Maurice looking black at May?"

"Because she was talking about you. It's not safe for anybody to talk about you before Maurice, I can tell you. But I don't want to talk about them, but about myself. Do you know what has happened?"

"How should I till you tell me?"

"Well, you might guess; but, I suppose, since Mr. Percy came, he has prevented you from seeing anything beyond himself."

"Don't be absurd, Bella; I can always see you, at any rate."

"And yet you can't guess? Well, then, my dear, I have altered my mind."

"What about?"

"Only yesterday I meant to be an old maid, and now I don't."

Lucia clapped her hands. "Oh, Bella! is it Doctor Morton?"

"I suppose so. You see it would be more convenient for me in some ways to be married; Elise and William might get tired of too much of my society, and no doubt it will suit him very well to have a house rent-free and a little money besides."

"Don't, Bella, you are incorrigible. I should think you might leave off joking now."

"Not I, I assure you. I leave the sentimental side of the question to you and Mr. Percy; though, to tell you the truth, I think you would be much better off in that respect with Maurice, and his highflown notions, which Elise calls chivalrous."

Certainly Bella's manner agreed with her words—never was so important a piece of news told by one girl to another, in so calm and business-like a style. Lucia, rather given to romance herself, was puzzled and half shocked.

When the visitors were gone, she repeated what she had heard to her mother, with wondering comments on a compact so coolly arranged, and was rather surprised to find that Mrs. Costello completely approved of it.

"I dare say," she said, "it may be a very happy marriage. Doctor Morton is a sensible man, and Bella too honest a girl to marry him if she did not mean to behave as he would like her."

And this, then, was her mother's idea of a happy marriage. Lucia wondered still more, yet less than she would have done if she had known how gladly Mrs. Costello would have seen her, also, safely bestowed in the keeping of "a sensible man."



CHAPTER V.

At the time when Bella informed Lucia of her engagement, her newly-accepted lover was having a long conversation with her brother-in-law and guardian. There was no reason why the marriage once arranged should be delayed; on the contrary, everybody was happily agreed in the opinion that it might take place almost immediately. The conference of the two gentlemen, therefore, passed readily into the region of business, and chiefly concerned dollars and cents.

Mr. Latour, the father of Mrs. Bellairs and Bella, had died rich; all his property in hind, houses, and money was carefully divided between the sisters; and as he had been dead less than two years, very slight changes had taken place during Mr. Bellairs' guardianship. Bella spoke reasonably enough when she said her fortune would be acceptable to Doctor Morton. He made no secret of the fact that it would be very acceptable, and Mr. Bellairs—though, for his own part, he would have married his charming Elise with exactly the same eagerness if she had been penniless—was too sensible to be at all displeased with his future brother-in-law's clear and straightforward manner of treating so important a subject. It is true that his brains and his diploma were almost all the capital the young man had to bring on his side, but these, had their acknowledged value, and, after all, Bella was very nearly of age, and it would be rather a comfort to see her safely disposed of, instead of having to give up her guardianship into her own giddy keeping.

Mr. Bellairs' office was a small wooden-frame building containing two rooms. In the outer one half-a-dozen budding lawyers, in various stages, sat at their desks; the inner one, where the two gentlemen discussed their arrangements, was small, and contained only a stove, a writing-table, two chairs, and some cupboards. Mr. Bellairs sat at the table with a pile of papers before him: in the second chair—an easy one—Doctor Morton lounged, and amused himself while he talked, by tracing the pattern of the empty stove with the end of a small cane. He was a good-looking young man, with very black eyes, and a small black beard; of middle height and strongly built, and noted in Cacouna as the boldest rider, the best swimmer, and one of the best shots, in the neighbourhood.

A little stir, and a loud rough voice speaking in the outer office, was followed by the entrance of a clerk.

"Here is Clarkson, sir. Says he must see you."

A shaggy head appeared over the clerk's shoulder, and the same rough voice called out, "Just a minute, Mr. Bellairs; it's only a small matter of business."

Mr. Bellairs went out, drawing the door together after him, and after a few minutes dismissed the man, and came back.

"That fellow may give you some trouble," he said as he sat down again.

"Me? How?" asked the Doctor, surprised.

"Some years ago, Mr. Latour bought a hundred acres of wild land on Beaver Creek. He took no trouble about it, except what he was actually obliged; never even saw it, I believe; and about a year before his death, this Clarkson squatted on it, built a house, married, and took his wife to live there. Mr. Latour heard of all this by chance, and went to see if it were true. There, he found the fellow comfortably settled, and expecting nothing less than to be turned out. The end of the matter, for that time, was, that Clarkson promised to pay some few dollars rent, and was left in possession. The rent, however, never was paid. Mr. Latour died, and when his affairs came into my hands I tried again to get it; threatened to turn Clarkson out, and pull down his house if he did not pay, and certainly would have done it, but for Bella, to whom I should tell you the land belongs. Mrs. Clarkson came into town, and went to her with such a pitiful story that she persuaded me to wait. The consequence is that nothing has been done yet, though I believe it is altogether misplaced kindness to listen to their excuses."

"I have no doubt it is."

"Clarkson is a great scamp, but I hear his wife is a very decent woman, and naturally Bella was humbugged."

"Naturally, yes. But I hope it is not too late to get rid of such tenants, or make them pay?"

"I would rather you undertook the task than I, except, of course, in the way of business. Professionally, a lawyer has no tenderness for people who can't pay."

"And in what condition is the rest of the land?"

"Much as it always was. The Indians are the only people who profit by it at present; they hunt over it, and dry the fish they catch in the creek, along the bank."

"Yet, if it were cleared, it ought not to be a bad position. Where is it on the creek?"

Mr. Bellairs reached a map, and the two became absorbed in discussing the probable advantages of turning out Clarkson and the Indians, and clearing the farm on Beaver Creek.

Mr. Bellairs left his office earlier than usual that day, and found his wife sitting alone in her little morning room. He took up a magazine which lay on the table, and seated himself comfortably in an easy-chair opposite to her.

"Where's Bella?" he asked presently.

"Upstairs, I believe. She and I have nearly quarrelled to-day."

"What about?"

"About her marriage. I declare, William, I have no patience with her."

Mr. Bellairs laughed. "An old complaint, my dear; but why?"

"She is so matter-of-fact. I asked her, at last, what she was going to marry for, and she told me coolly, for convenience."

Mrs. Bellairs' indignation made her husband laugh still more. "They are well matched," he said; "Morton is as cool as she is. He might be Bluebeard proposing for his thirteenth wife."

"Well, you may like it, but I don't. If they care so little about each other now, what will they do when they have been married as long as we have?"

"My dear Elise, you and I were born too soon. We never thought of marrying for convenience; but as our ideas on the subject don't seem to have changed much in ten years, perhaps theirs may not do so either. By the way, where's Percy?"

"That's another thing. I don't want to be inhospitable to your cousin, but I do wish with all my heart that he was back in England."

Mr. Bellairs threw his magazine on the table. "Why, what on earth is the matter with him?"

"Do you know where he spends half his time?"

"Not I. To tell the truth, his listless, dawdling way rather provokes me, and I have not been sorry to see less of him lately."

"He goes to the Cottage every day."

"Does he? I should not have thought that an amusement much in his way."

"You say yourself that Lucia is a wonderfully pretty girl."

"Lucia? She is a child. You don't think that attracts him?"

Mrs. Bellairs was silent.

"Elise, don't be absurd. You women are always fancying things of that kind. A fellow like Percy is not so easily caught."

"I hope to goodness I am only fancying, but I believe you would give Mrs. Costello credit for some sense, and she is certainly uneasy."

"Does she say so?"

"No. But I know it; and Maurice and Lucia are not the same friends they used to be."

"Lucia must be an idiot if she can prefer Percy to Maurice; but most girls do seem to be idiots."

"In the meantime, what to do? I feel as if we were to blame."

"We can't very well turn out my honourable cousin. I suspect the best thing to do is to leave them alone. He will not forget to take care of himself."

"He? No fear. But it is of her I think. I should be sorry to see her married to him, even if the Earl would consent."

"It will never come to that. And, after all, you may be mistaken in supposing there is anything more than a little flirtation."

Mrs. Bellairs shook her head, but said no more. She knew by experience that her husband would remember what he had heard, and take pains to satisfy himself as to the cause of her anxiety. She had also (after ten years of wedlock!) implicit faith in his power to do something, she did not know what, to remedy whatever was wrong.

That evening, when the whole family were assembled, the half-abandoned scheme of passing a long day in the country was revived, and the time finally settled. It was agreed that Doctor Morton, Lucia, and Maurice should be the only persons invited; but when all the other arrangements had been made, it appeared that Maurice had some particularly obstinate engagement which refused to be put off, and he was, therefore, of necessity left behind.

The morning fixed for the excursion proved breathlessly hot; the sky was of one unvaried, dazzling, blue, and the waters of the river seemed to rise above their banks, while every object, even houses and trees at a considerable distance, was reflected in them with a clearness which foretold stormy weather. A note from Mrs. Bellairs had prepared Lucia, and she was standing on the verandah, dangling her hat in her hand, when Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs drove up. She only stopped to give her mother a last hasty kiss, and then ran out to meet them.

The others had gone on, and were dawdling along the road, when Bob, at his usual sober trot, turned out of the lane—Doctor Morton driving with Bella, Mr. Percy on horseback. The party moved on leisurely, too hot to think of a quicker movement, and, as was natural, Mr. Percy drew his horse to the side of the phaeton where Lucia sat. A drive of three miles brought them to the farm, where they left the horses in the care of a servant, and walked across a wide, unenclosed space of green to the house. It was a long, ugly building, with innumerable windows. The walls were whitewashed, and glared out painfully in the sunshine; the roof, window-frames, and doors painted a dull red; but the situation, similar to that of Mrs. Costello's Cottage, was lovely, and a group of fine trees standing just where the green bank began to slope down abruptly to the river, gave a delicious shade to that side of the building and to some seats placed under them. Mr. Latour, in letting the house, had retained one room for his daughters, who were fond of the place, and they still kept possession of it. Here they were to dine; for the rest of the day, out of doors was much pleasanter than in.

A boat and fishing-tackle were at hand, but it was too hot to fish; after wandering about a little, they all sat down under the trees. Mrs. Bellairs, Bella, and Lucia had some pretence of work in their hands; the three gentlemen lounged on the grass near them. The farmer's children, at play at the end of the house, occasionally darted out to peep at them, and flew back again the moment they were perceived. Everything else was still, even the leaves overhead did not move, and the silence was so infectious that by degrees all talk ceased—each had his or her own dreams for the moment. Bella and Doctor Morton, utterly unromantic pair of lovers as they were, must have had some touch of the ordinary softness of human nature; they looked content with all the world. Lucia, leaning back with her crochet lying on her lap, and her eyes half hidden by their black lashes, had yielded herself up entirely to the indolent enjoyment of perfect stillness, forgetting even to be conscious of the pair of handsome blue eyes which rested on her, taking in luxuriously the charm of her beauty.

When this pause had lasted a minute or two, a sudden glance passed between Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs. His said, "I am afraid you were right;"—hers, "What shall we do?" to which he replied by getting up, and saying,

"Are you all going to sleep, good people?"

A reluctant stir, and change of position among the group, answered him.

"What else can we do?" asked Bella. "It is too hot to move."

"If you intend to go on the river to-day, it had better be soon," said her brother-in-law. "There is every appearance of a storm coming on."

"Not before we get home, I hope. But look, there is a canoe."

As she spoke, a small object came darting across the river. It approached so fast, that in a minute or two they could distinguish plainly that it was, in fact, a tiny bark canoe. One Indian woman, seated at the end, seemed to be its only occupant; the repeated flashes of sunlight on her paddle showed how quick and dexterous were its movements as she steered straight for the landing in front of the farmhouse.

"Look here, Percy," said Mr. Bellairs; "I don't believe you have seen a squaw yet. Get up and quote appropriate poetry on the occasion."

"'Hiawatha' I suppose? I don't know any," and Mr. Percy rose lazily. "She is an odd figure. How do you know it's a woman at all?"

"Don't you see the papoose lying in the canoe?"

"Conclusive evidence, certainly; but upon my word the lady's costume is not particularly feminine."

They were all standing up now, watching the canoe which had drawn quite near the bank. In a minute or two longer it touched the land, and the woman rose. She was of small size, but rather squarely built; her long jet black hair, without ornament or attempt at dressing, hung loosely down over her shoulders; she wore mocassins of soft yellow leather ornamented with beads; trousers of black cloth, with a border of the same kind of work, reached her ankles; a cloth skirt, almost without fulness, came a little below the knee, and was covered, to within three or four inches of its edge, by an equally scanty one of red and white cotton, with a kind of loose bodice and sleeves, attached to it; a blanket, fastened round her shoulders in such a manner that it could be drawn over her head like a monk's cowl, completed her dress. A little brown baby, tightly swathed in an old shawl, lay at her feet, exposed, seemingly without discomfort, to the hot glare of the sun. She stood a moment, as if examining the house, and the group of figures in front of it; then picked up her child, slipped it into the folds of her blanket, so that it hung safely on her back, its black eyes peeping out over her shoulders, took a bundle of mats from under the seat of her canoe, and stepped on shore.

As she came, with light firm steps, up the bank, not exactly approaching them, but turning to the house-door, the party under the trees separated; the gentlemen, attracted by the lightness and beauty of the canoe, went down to the water's edge to look at it more closely. Bella wanted to see the papoose, and perhaps to bargain with its mother for some of her work; Mrs. Bellairs and Lucia remained alone, when the former, turning to say something to her companion, was surprised to see her pale, trembling, and looking ready to faint.

"My dear child," she cried in alarm, "what is the matter, you are ill?"

"Not ill, only stupid. Don't mind me. I shall be quite right again in a minute." But her breath came in gasps, and her very lips were white.

"Will you come in? Can you walk?"

"No, no; it is nothing." By a strong effort she recovered herself a little, and smiled. "Could anything be so absurd?"

"What was it? I can't understand."

"That poor woman. Is not it strange the sight of an Indian or a squaw always throws me into a kind of panic. I am horribly frightened, and I don't know why."

"It is strange, certainly; what are you afraid of?"

"Of nothing at all. I cannot think why I should feel so, but I always have. Indeed I try not to be so foolish."

"I can't scold you for it at present, for you really frightened me, and you are generally fearless enough."

"I am so glad there was no one but you here. Please do not tell anybody."

"But do you know, child, that you are still as pale as ever you can be? And they are coming back from the river. Your enemy is out of sight now; let us walk up to the house."

They put on their hats, and walked slowly up the sunny slope; but as they came upon the level space in front of the house, the squaw, who had been bargaining with the farmer's wife at a side door, came round the corner and met them face to face. She paused a moment, and then walked straight up to the two ladies, holding out her mats as an invitation to them to buy. Lucia shrank back, and Mrs. Bellairs afraid, from her previous alarm, that she really would faint, motioned hastily to the woman to go away. But she seemed in no hurry to obey; repeating in a monotonous tone, "Buy, buy," she stood still, fixing her eyes upon Lucia with a keen look of inquiry. The poor child, terrified, and ashamed of being so, made an uncertain movement towards the door, when the squaw suddenly laid her hand upon her arm.

"Where live?" she said, in broken English.

"Go, go!" cried Mrs. Bellairs impatiently. "We have nothing for you;" and taking Lucia's arm, she drew her into their sitting-room, and shut the door.

"Lie down on the sofa;" she said, "what could the woman mean? You must have an opposite effect on her to what she has on you. But you need not fear any more; she is going down to her canoe."

By degrees, Lucia's panic subsided, her colour came back, and she regained courage to go out and meet the others. They found that Doctor Morton and Bella had strolled away along the shore, while the other two were occupied in discussing Indian customs and modes of life, their conversation having started from the bark canoe. The two ladies took their work, and remained quiet listeners, until a rough-looking, untidy servant-girl came to tell them dinner was ready.

Fish caught that morning, and fowls killed since the arrival of the party, were on the table; the untidy servant had been commissioned by her mistress to wait, which she did by sitting down and looking on with great interest while dinner proceeded. It was not a particularly satisfactory meal in its earlier stages, but all deficiencies were atoned for by the appearance of a huge dish of delicious wild raspberries, and a large jug of cream, which formed the second course.

As soon as dinner was over, the boat was brought out, and they spent an hour or two on the river; but the weather had already begun to change, and, to avoid the approaching storm, they were obliged to leave the farm much earlier than they had intended, and hasten towards home. When they approached the Cottage, Lucia begged to be set down, that her friends might not be hindered by turning out of their way to take her quite home; Mr. Bellairs drew up, therefore, at the end of the lane, and Lucia sprang out. Mr. Percy, however, insisted on going with her. He dismounted and led his horse beside her.

"I am sure you will be wet," she said; "you forget that I am a Canadian girl, and quite used to running about by myself."

"That may be very well," he answered, "when you have no one at your disposal for an escort, but at present the case is different."

She blushed a little and smiled. "In England would people be shocked at my going wherever I please alone?"

"I don't know; I believe I am forgetting England and everything about it. Do you know that I ought to be there now?"

"Ought? that is a very serious word. But you are not going yet?"

"Not just yet. Miss Costello, your mother is an Englishwoman, why don't you persuade her to bring you to England."

"My mother will never go to England." Lucia repeated the words slowly like a lesson learned by rote; and as she did so, an old question rose again in her mind,—why not?

"Yet you long to go—you have told me so."

"Yes, oh! I do long to go. It seems to me like Fairyland."

It was Mr. Percy's turn to smile now. "Not much like Fairyland," he answered; "not half so much like it as your own Canada."

"Well, perhaps I shall see it some day, but then alone. Without mamma, I should not care half so much."

"Are you still so much a child? 'Without mamma' would be no great deprivation to most young ladies."

"I cannot understand that. But then we have always been together; we could hardly live apart."

"Not even if you had—Doctor Morton for instance, to take care of you?"

Lucia laughed heartily at the idea, and Mr. Percy laughed too, though his sentence had begun seriously enough. They were now at the gate, he bade her good-bye, and springing on his horse, went away at a pace which was meant to carry off a considerable amount of irritation against himself. "I had nearly made a pretty fool of myself," he soliloquised. "It is quite time I went away from here. But what a sweet little piece of innocence she is, and so lovely! I do not believe anything more perfect ever was created. Pshaw! who would have thought of my turning sentimental?"

As Lucia turned from the gate, Margery put her head round the corner of the house, and beckoned.

"Your ma's lying down, Miss Lucia,—at least I guess so,—and she doesn't expect you yet, and I've something to tell you."

Lucia went into the kitchen and sat down. She was feeling tired after the heat of the day, and the excitement of her alarm, and expected only to hear some tale of household matters. But to her surprise Margery began, "There've been a squaw here to-day, and, you know, they don't come much about Cacouna, thank goodness, nasty brown things—but this one, she came with her mats and rubbish, in a canoe, to be sure. Your ma, she was out, and I caught sight of something coming up the bank towards the house, so I went out on the verandah to see. As soon as she saw me, she held up her mats and says, 'Buy, buy, buy,' making believe she knew no more English than that, but I told her we wanted none of her goods, and then she said, 'Missis at home?' I told her no, and she said 'Where?' as impudent as possible. I told her that was none of her business, and she'd better go; but instead of that, she took hold of my gown, and she said "Lucia" as plain as possible. I do declare, Miss Lucia, I did not know what to make of her, for how she should come to know your name was queer anyhow; but I just said, Mrs. Costello is not in, nor Miss Lucia neither, so you'd better be off; and she nodded her head a lot of times, and seemed as if she were considering whether to go or not. I asked her what she wanted, but she would not tell me, and after awhile she went off again in her canoe as fast as if she was going express."

Lucia was thoroughly startled by this story. Mr. Strafford's letter came to her mind, and connected itself with the singular look and manner of the squaw, at the farm. This could not certainly be the mysterious "C." of the letter, for Mr. Strafford said "he is in the neighbourhood," but it might be Mary Wanita, who had apparently given the first friendly warning, and might possibly have come to Cacouna for the purpose of giving a second, and more urgent one.

"Where was mamma?" she asked.

"Gone in to see Mr. Leigh," Margery answered; "he is quite sick to-day, and Mr. Maurice came to ask your mamma to go and sit with him awhile."

"Did you tell her about this squaw?"

"Well, no, Miss Lucia, I had a kind of guess it was better not. You see she is not very strong, and I thought you could tell her when you came if you thought it was any use."

"Thank you, Margery, you were quite right."

Lucia went in slowly, thinking the matter over. It did not, however, appear to her advisable to conceal from her mother the squaw's visit—it might have greater significance than she, knowing so little, could imagine—but she wished extremely that she possessed some gauge by which to measure beforehand the degree of agitation her news was likely to produce. She had none, however, and could devise no better plan than that of telling Mrs. Costello, quite simply, what she had just heard from Margery.

As she opened the door of the parlour, Mrs. Costello half rose from the sofa, where she was lying.

"Is it you, darling," she asked, "so soon?"

"There is a storm coming on," Lucia answered; "we hurried home to escape it."

"And you have had a pleasant day?"

"Very pleasant. You have been out, too?"

"Yes; poor Mr. Leigh is quite an invalid, and complains that he never sees you now."

"I will go to-morrow," Lucia said hastily, and then, glad to escape from the subject, asked if her mother had seen an Indian woman about?

Mrs. Costello answered no, but Lucia felt her start, and went on to repeat, in as unconcerned a tone as possible, Margery's story; but when she said that her own name had been mentioned, her mother stopped her.

"Was the woman a stranger? Have you ever seen her?"

"She was a stranger to Margery certainly. I think I saw her to-day."

"Where? Tell me all you know of her."

Lucia described the squaw's appearance at the farm.

"It must be Mary," Mrs. Costello said half to herself. "What shall I do? How escape?"

She rose from the sofa and walked with hurried steps up and down the room. Lucia watched her in miserable perplexity till she suddenly stopped.

"Is that all?" she asked. "Did she go away?"

Lucia finished her account, and when she had done so, Mrs. Costello came back to the sofa and sat down. She put her arm round her daughter, and drawing her close to her, she said, "You are a good child, Lucia, for you ask no questions, though you may well think your mother ought to trust you. Be patient only a little longer, till I have thought all over. Perhaps we shall be obliged to go away. I cannot tell."

"Away from Cacouna, mamma?"

"Away from Cacouna and from Canada. Away from all you love—can you bear it?"

"Yes—with you;" but the first pang of parting came with those words.



CHAPTER VI.

"Away from all you love!" The words haunted Lucia after she lay down in her little white bed that night. There, in the midst of every object familiar to her through all her life, surrounded by the perfect atmosphere of home, she repeated, with wondering trouble, the threat that had come to her. When at last she slept, these words, and the pale face of her mother bending over her as she closed her eyes, mixed themselves with her dreams. At last, she fancied that a violent storm had come on in the very noon of a brilliant summer day. She herself, her mother, Percy and Maurice seemed to be standing on the river bank watching how the sky darkened, and the water rose in great waves at their feet. Suddenly a canoe appeared, and in it a hideous old squaw, who approached the shore, and stretching out a long bony hand drew her away from her mother's side, and in spite of her terror made her step into the frail boat, which instantly flew down the stream into the darkest and wildest of the storm. She stretched out her arms for help—Percy stood still upon the bank, as if anxious but unable to give it—Maurice waved his hand to her, and turned away. She seemed to know that he was deserting her for ever, and in an agony of fear and sorrow she gathered all her strength to call him back. The effort woke her. She lay trembling, with tears of agitation pouring from her eyes, while the storm which had mingled with her dream raged furiously round the Cottage.

Morning came at last, dim and dreary. The wind subsided at dawn, but the sky was full of torn and jagged clouds, carried hither and thither by its varying currents. All over the ground lay broken flowers and sprays torn from the trees, the vine had been loosened in several places from its fastenings and hung disconsolately over the verandah—all looked ravaged and desolate, as Lucia pressed her hot cheek against the rain-covered window, and tried to shake off the misery—still new to her—which belongs to the early morning after a restless, fevered night. But as the sun rose bright and warm, her spirits naturally revived; she dressed early, and went out into the garden, intent upon remedying as far as possible the mischief that had been done, before her mother should see it; and accustomed as she was to work among her much-beloved plants, the task was soon making quick progress. But among her roses, the most valued of all her flowers, a new discouragement awaited her. One beautiful tree, the finest of all, which yesterday had been splendid in the glory of its late blossoms, had been torn up by the wind, and flung down battered and half covered with sand at a little distance from the bed where it had grown. The sight of this misfortune seemed to Lucia almost more than she could bear; she sat down upon a garden-seat close by, and looked at her poor rose-tree as if its fate were to be a type of her own. She recollected a thousand trifles connected with it; how she had disputed with Mr. Percy about its beauty, arguing that it was less perfect than some others, because he had said it was more so; she remembered how from that very tree she had gathered a blossom for him the first day he came to the Cottage. Then, in her fanciful mood, she reproached herself for letting her unfortunate favourite speak to her only of him, and forgetting that it was Maurice who had obtained it for her, who had planted it, and would be sorry for its destruction. She rose, and tried to lift the broken tree; but as she leaned over it, Maurice himself passed through the wicket, and came towards her. She turned to meet him as if it were quite natural that he should come just then.

"Oh, Maurice, look! I am so sorry."

"Your pet rose-tree? But perhaps it will recover yet."

He raised it carefully, while she stood looking on.

"It is not much broken, after all. I will plant it again; and with plenty of support and shade, I think it will do."

Lucia flew to bring her spade. She held the tree, while Maurice carefully arranged its roots and piled the earth about them; the scattered leaves were picked up from the bed, and a kind of tent made with matting over the invalid; at last she found time to say,

"But how did you happen to come just at the right moment?"

"I saw you from my window. I noticed that you were very busy for awhile, and when you stopped working and sat down in that disconsolate attitude, I guessed some terrible misfortune must have happened. So I came."

Lucia looked at him gravely, a little troubled.

"I never saw anybody like you," she said; "you seem always to know when one is in a dilemma."

Maurice laughed.

"If all dilemmas were like this, I might easily get up a character for being a sort of Providence; but come and show me what else there is to do."

They worked together for an hour, by the end of which, all was restored nearly to its former neatness. Mrs. Costello came out and found them busy at the vine. Maurice was on a ladder nailing it up, while Lucia handed him the nails and strips of cloth, as he wanted them. She felt a lively pleasure in seeing them thus occupied. Maurice was too dear to her, for her not to have seen how Lucia's recent and gradual estrangement had troubled him; for his sake, therefore, as well as for her own and her child's, she had grieved daily over what she dared not interfere to prevent,—the breaking up of old habits, and the intervention between these two of an influence she dreaded. The experience of her own life had convinced her, rightly or wrongly, that it was worse than useless for parents to try to control their children's inclinations in the most important point where inclination ever ought to be made the rule of conduct. But for years she had hoped that Lucia's affection for Maurice would grow, unchecked and untroubled, till it attained that perfection which she thought the beau ideal of married love; and even now, she held tenaciously to such fragments of her old hope as still remained. This morning, after a night of the most painful anxiety and foreboding, her mind naturally caught at the idea that all could not go wrong with her; that she must have exaggerated the change in Lucia, and that, at least, some of the trouble she had anticipated for her child was a mere chimera.

She came out to them, therefore, pale and weary from her vigil, but cheerful and composed.

"How is your father, Maurice?" she asked; "can you stay with us to breakfast?"

"Thank you, no; my father is so much alone. He seemed better last night. Your visit did him good."

"I am glad of that. Lucia will go over to-day and stay with him for a while."

"Will she? He says she never comes to see him now."

"Indeed, I will," said Lucia, with a little remorse in her tone. "I will go and read the newspaper straight through to him, from one end to the other."

"Poor Lucia! What a sacrifice to friendship," answered Maurice laughing. "But to reward you, Blackwood arrived last night, and you will find the new chapter of your favourite story."

Soon after ten o'clock Lucia put on her hat, and, strong in her good resolutions, went along the lane to Mr. Leigh's. She lifted the latch rather timidly, and peeped in. From the tiny entrance she could see into the large square sitting-room, so tidy and so bare, from which the last trace of feminine occupation had passed away three years ago, when Alice Leigh, her old playfellow, died. There, in his high-backed chair, sat the solitary old man, prematurely old, worn out by labour and sorrow before his time. He turned his head at the sound of her entrance, and held out his hand, with a smile of welcome.

"My child, what a stranger you have grown!"

She came forward with a tender thrill of pity and affection.

"And you have been ill?" she said; "why did not you tell Maurice you wanted me?"

"Never mind, now. There is your own chair; sit down and tell me all your news."

She brought her chair to his side, and began to talk to him. How many happy hours she had spent in this room! Long ago, when she could first remember, when her mother and Mrs. Leigh had been dear friends; later, when there were yet others left of the ever-diminishing circle; later still, when Alice and Maurice were her daily companions; and even since, when she herself seemed to be, in the quiet household, the only representative of the daughters and sisters passed away. She felt that she had been selfish lately, and began to reproach herself the more strongly as she saw how affectionately she was still welcomed.

She told all the little scraps of news she could think of; she arranged on the mantelpiece some flowers she had brought in; finally, she found the new Blackwood, and entertained both her old friend and herself so well with it that two hours passed almost unperceived. Mr. Leigh's old servant, coming in with his early dinner, interrupted them in the middle of an interesting article, and reminded her that it was high time to go home.

"I will come again to-morrow," she said, as she put aside her book, and taking up her hat she hurried away.

As she walked up the lane, she could not help feeling a certain anxiety to know whether there had been any visitors at home during her absence. Mr. Percy often came in the morning, and if he had been there—

She ran up the verandah steps and into the parlour. Mrs. Costello sat there alone, and two letters lay on the table.

"Here is a note for you," she said, as Lucia came in. "Mr. Percy brought it."

"He has been here, then?" and she took up the note, not much caring to open it when she saw Bella's writing.

"Yes. He came very soon after you were gone. He said he was coming to say good-bye, and Bella asked him to bring that."

"To say good-bye?"

Lucia felt the colour fade out of her cheeks. She held the note in a tight grasp to keep her hand from trembling, and sat down.

"He and Mr. Bellairs are going up the Lakes. They will be back, I imagine, in a week or two. Perhaps, Bella tells you more."

In fact, Mr. Percy had been annoyed at not finding Lucia, and slightly discontented at being drawn into an excursion which would take him away from Cacouna. Only a small time yet remained before he must return to England, and he had been sufficiently conscious that Mrs. Costello would not regret his departure, to be very uncommunicative on the subject. Bella, however, was much more explicit.

"My dear Lucia," she said, "shall you be much surprised to hear that these good people have arranged for a certain wedding, in which both you and I are interested, to take place on the first of next month; that is, not quite three weeks from to-day? How I am to be ready I do not know; but as you are to be bridesmaid, I implore you to come to me either this evening or to-morrow, that we may arrange about the dresses and so on. Is not it a mercy? William has taken into his head that he is obliged to go up the Lakes to Sault Ste. Marie, in the interest of some client or other, and has persuaded his cousin to go with him, so that Elise and I will be left in peace for our last few weeks together. They are to be back about the 26th, and I have done all I could to make Doctor Morton go with them, but he says if he does, the house will not be ready, so, I suppose, he must stay. They start by this evening's boat, and as the dearly beloved cousin is sure to go to see you first, I shall ask him to take my note. Entre nous, I don't believe he is particularly anxious to go. And you? I expect every time I come near the Cottage, I shall hear you singing your mother's favourite song:

'Alas! I scarce can go or creep, Now Lubin is away.'

Lubin! What a name! Mind you come, whatever else you do. Think of the importance of the subject. Dresses, my dear, wedding-dresses!

"Ever yours, "BELLA."

Lucia read Bella's effusion hastily through, and gave it to her mother. Mrs. Costello laughed as she finished it.

"When will you go on this important errand?" she asked.

"Oh! not to-day, mamma, I am tired, and they don't really want me. I shall stay with you this afternoon."

"I have been writing to Mr. Strafford," Mrs. Costello said after a pause. "Some time ago I asked him to come up and see us; he could not do so then, but I hope now to be able to persuade him. I think, too, that the squaw who was here yesterday may be one of his people. Formerly I knew something of many of them; that might account for her coming. I have told him of it, and will do nothing until I receive his answer."

Lucia was silent; she longed to say something, but the conviction that her mother was quite decided in her reticence on the subject of the mystery, which was clearly so painful a one, restrained her. They dined, and spent the afternoon together without any further allusion to the subject; and Lucia was thankful to perceive that her mother's tranquillity seemed to have been far less disturbed by this second alarm than it had been by the first.

In the evening, quite late, Maurice came in. He said his father was much better. Lucia's long visit had cheered him and done him good, and he hoped in a day or two to be able to get out a little. Lucia was very quiet during Maurice's stay; it would not have been easy to say whether she was happy or sorrowful. She sat in her low chair and thought of yesterday, of the night and her dream, of old Mr. Leigh sitting alone in his dreary house so many hours each day, of his pleasure at seeing her, of Mr. Percy's absence; finally, of the comfort and pleasantness of sitting there undisturbed and hearing the voices of her mother and Maurice gradually subsiding into a drowsy hum. The next thing she knew Maurice was saying softly, "She is asleep. Don't wake her, Mrs. Costello. Good-night." And she woke just in time to catch the last glimpse of his figure as he went out.

The next day's consultation with Bella about dresses was only the first of many, in which the arrangements for the wedding were completely settled. Lucia and Magdalen Scott were to be bridesmaids; Harry Scott and Maurice, groomsmen; and the ceremony was to take place in the house, according to a whim of the bride, who did not choose to exhibit her own and her friends' pretty dresses in the church—"a great ugly barn."

Lucia had also a daily visit to Mr. Leigh to occupy her. He was recovering from his slight attack of illness, and enjoyed her lively talk and affectionate care. One day he even let her persuade him to walk, with her assistance, as far as the Cottage; and when she had established him in the most comfortable chair beside her mother, he was so content with the change that Maurice, coming home from Cacouna, was met by the unheard-of announcement, "Mr. Leigh is out."

He followed the truant, and found him in no hurry to return. The two elder people, indeed, both enjoyed this visit, which seemed to carry them back to a time brighter than the present. They talked of trifles, but of trifles which were in a kind of harmony with the happier days of both. Lucia, sitting at the door, where she could see the sunny landscape and the river, listened idly to their talk, but mixed it with her own girlish fancies; while near to her Maurice sat down, glad of the homelike rest of the moment, glad of the friendly look of welcome with which she met him; knowing distinctly that if at that moment he had asked her for anything more than friendship, she would have been shocked and distressed, but willing to enjoy to the utmost all the happiness her present and grateful regard could give him. Not that he was content; an unspeakable longing to get rid of all this veil of reserve, to make her understand what she was so blind to, to carry her off from all the frivolities which came between them, and make her love him as he thought she might love, lay deep down in his heart and swelled up, at times almost uncontrollably. But she never guessed it, and never should, unless, perhaps, time should bring her a harder discipline than his. Then, if ever she came to want love, to want happiness, it would be his opportunity; at present, he could still wait.

This evening might well be one of enjoyment. It was the last that those four were ever to spend together at the Cottage. Nearly a fortnight had passed since Mr. Bellairs and his cousin had started for Sault Ste. Marie, and they were expected back in a day or two. The preparations for Bella's marriage were almost completed, and Lucia was looking forward with a pleasant flutter of excitement to her own appearance as bridesmaid. Mrs. Costello's letter to Mr. Strafford remained unanswered, but from the circuitous route by which their communication now took place that was not wonderful; rather, indeed, the fact of having heard nothing from him seemed reassuring, and in the interval, no further incident had occurred to disturb her tranquillity. Thus the hours that Maurice and his father spent together at the Cottage were, to the whole party, hours of a certain calm and peace, pleasant to recollect after the calm had been broken.

The next day Lucia spent almost entirely at Mrs. Bellairs'. Bella drove her home in the evening, and when she came in she found Maurice alone on the verandah. It was quite dusk, very nearly dark—a soft, still, dewy evening, and she could but just distinguish his figure as he moved, to meet her.

"Is it you, Maurice?" she said. "Is mamma there?"

"Yes, and no," he answered; "Mrs. Costello is just gone in."

"How is Mr. Leigh? I have not seen him to-day."

"No; I have been at home most of the day."

"Is he worse then?" she said, alarmed.

"He is not quite so well, but nothing serious. Are you tired?"

"No, not at all. Something is the matter, Maurice. I can hear it in your voice."

"Nothing is the matter, I assure you. Something unexpected has happened, but only to my father and me, and I want to talk to you about it. That is all."

"Something unexpected? What?"

"Come down to the river side; it is quiet there and cool."

They went down together; it was growing very dark, and the turf on the bank was soft and uneven. Lucia put her hand through Maurice's arm with her old childlike familiarity, and said,

"Why do you excite my curiosity if you don't mean to satisfy it, you tiresome Maurice?"

"Are you in such a hurry to hear my news, then? I feel in no such haste to tell it. Look, do you see those lights on the river?"

"Yes. How quickly they move! What are they?"

"What we very seldom see here. They are the lights Indians use in spearing fish."

"Indians!"

Lucia's voice was faint, and she clung to Maurice's arm. Surprised to feel her trembling, he said, "I intended a night or two ago to tell you to look out for them. Surely, you are not afraid of an Indian?"

"I am a little," she answered, trying to overcome her terror. "But where do these come from?"

"You know the saw-mill at the other end of the town, beyond Mr. Bayne's? There are three or four Indians at work there, and they go out sometimes at night to fish."

The two lights, which had been but just visible when they first came out, flitting here and there through the darkness, had now approached much nearer, so that the canoes could be plainly distinguished. They were quite small, and each contained two men, one sitting down in the stern, a dark undefined shadow, scarcely seen except for the occasional flash of his paddle in the light; the other standing at the prow in the full glare of the fire which burned there, and lit up his wild half-naked figure and the long fish-spear in his hand. As the canoe moved from place to place, they could see the spear dart swiftly into the water, and the sparkle of wet scales as the fish was brought up and thrown into the boat.

Lucia's terror had at first overpowered her curiosity, and as it subsided, she was, for a minute or two, too much interested in the novel sight to renew her questions. As for Maurice, he was, as he had said, in no haste to speak.

It was pleasant to have her for a little while all to himself, pleasant to feel her hand resting more closely on his arm as if he could protect her, even from her own foolish fear, and all was the sweeter, because it might be for the last time. At last, however, she said again,

"But tell me what you were going to. What has happened?"

"One thing that has happened," he replied, rousing himself, "is that I have heard more family history than I knew before. Do you care to hear that?"

"Yes; I should like to if you don't mind."

"Well, you know that my father and mother came out here from England many years ago, directly after their marriage. This marriage, it appears, was disapproved of by my mother's family—was a runaway match, indeed, and never forgiven even to the time of her death."

"Oh, Maurice! and were her father and mother alive?"

"Her father was, and still is. She was an only daughter, with but one brother; and my grandfather, who is a Norfolk gentleman of large property, expected her, reasonably enough, to marry a man who was her equal in fortune. However, she chose to marry my father, who was then a soldier, a poor lieutenant, with little money, and equally little prospect of rising. I don't know whether women are very wise or very foolish, Lucia, but they seem to see things with different eyes to men. My mother chose to marry, then, though my father was poor, and certain to remain so; though she was a gay spoiled girl of just twenty-one, and he a grave man not much under forty. He sold out, and they came here. I don't believe she ever was unhappy, or repented her marriage, and my father while she lived had all he cared for; since her death, indeed, there has been sorrow after sorrow."

Maurice stopped a moment.

"But you know all that," he said hastily, and went on. "My mother wrote several times to her father and to her brother, first after her arrival in Canada, then after the birth of her eldest child, and last of all just before she died; but no answer ever came. After her death my father, as she wished, wrote again, but until this morning he had heard nothing from my grandfather for all these six-and-twenty years."

"You have heard, then, at last?"

"At last. This morning a letter came. It is a pitiful one to read. My grandfather is, as you may suppose, a very old man; he is ill and alone, and begins to repent, I think, of his harshness to my mother."

"But why is he alone? You said he had a son."

"Yes, but he is dead. He died six months ago, and left but one child, a daughter, who is married and has no children."

"No children? and your grandfather is very rich?"

"I believe so."

"But you are his heir, then? Is that it?"

"He says so, or rather, he says my mother's eldest son is his heir. He knows nothing of me individually."

"And you are the only one left? Ah, Maurice, if Alice even had been alive!"

Maurice sighed.

"If poor Herbert had been alive, how gladly I would have left the heirship to him!"

"But why? I think that is foolish. It is a good thing to be rich. It will be a good thing for you, because you are good."

Maurice laughed.

"Your flattery, Lucia, will not reconcile me to my fate. You have not yet heard all."

"What else? Is Mr. Leigh pleased?"

"Not more than I am. My grandfather wants to see his heir."

"Do you mean that he wants you to go to England?"

"Yes. And my father consents."

"But not yet?"

"At once. To sail from New York on Saturday."

"It is Wednesday now."

"I start to-morrow night."

"When will you come back?"

"When, indeed? Lucia, do not you see that this is a heavy price to pay?"

"Ah! don't go. This grandfather has been cruel all these years; let him wait now. Beside, what will Mr. Leigh do without you?"

"He insists upon my going. He believes it would have been my mother's wish, and therefore he will rather stay here alone than refuse."

"Then you must go. But could not you persuade him to come and stay with us? Mamma would like it, I know."

"Impossible, dear child. Who knows how long I may be away, or what changes may take place before I come back."

"Well, we shall see him every day, in any case. But what shall I do without you? and mamma?"

"You remind me of the last thing I have to say. It seems to me, I cannot tell you why, as if this change in my own life was to be followed by other changes. I think Mrs. Costello has something of the same feeling, and I want to say this to you, that if you should find it true, you may remember in any disturbance of this quiet life of yours that I had some vague anticipation of it, and not hesitate to let me be any help, any use, to you that I can be. Do you understand? I shall be away, but I shall not be changed in anything. You told me the other day I always came to your help in your dilemmas. I want you to think of me always so. Can you manage to keep such, a living recollection of the absent?"

Lucia's tears were falling fast by this time in the darkness, yet she thought there was something cold and restrained in Maurice's words and tone, and she could not guess how much the restraint cost him.

"As if I should forget you!" she said rather resentfully. "I could just as soon forget my brother, if I had one."

The word did not suit Maurice. He sighed, with a kind of impatience.

"Shall we go in?" he said.

They turned towards the house, but when they reached it, instead of following Lucia in, he said "Good-night."

She turned in surprise.

"But you are coming in?"

"Not to-night; my father will be waiting for me."

"Let me call mamma, then."

"I have said good-night to her. You will not forget? I do not mean forget me, but, forget that wherever I am, or wherever you are, you have the right to ask anything of me that a friend can do for you."

"But we shall see you to-morrow?"

"Certainly. Go in; the air is damp and cold."

He went away quickly, but Lucia lingered on the verandah until Mrs. Costello came to look for her. Already she thought the house looked desolate. What should they do without Maurice? Never in her life had she been so sorrowful, yet she had not the slightest idea how far his pain exceeded hers, or how he had longed for a word from her which would have encouraged him, at this last moment, to say all that was in his heart.



CHAPTER VII.

When Lucia awoke next morning, her first thought was of Maurice—what should she do without him? She rose and dressed hastily, fancying that at any moment he might come in, and anxious to lengthen, by every means, the time of their nearness to each other.

Maurice, however, though he looked wishfully at the Cottage as he went about his preparations, had too many things to think of and arrange, to steal a moment for the indulgence of his inclinations until afternoon, and she was obliged to wait with such patience as she could for his coming. He had told Mrs. Costello that it would be needful for him to spend two or three hours in Cacouna, and asked her to see his father in the meantime. Thus, in the afternoon, Lucia was for a considerable time quite alone.

Mrs. Costello, meanwhile, with more than friendly sympathy, heard from Mr. Leigh his reasons for urging upon Maurice this hasty departure, and cheered him with anticipations of his speedy return. They consulted over, and completed together, some last preparations for his voyage; and while they felt almost equally the trial of parting with him, the grief of each was a kind of solace to the other. For, in fact, whatever they might say, neither regarded this journey as an ordinary one, or thought that the return they spoke of would be what they tried to imagine it.

Mr. Leigh, believing that his strength was really failing more and more, hastened his son's departure, that the voyage might be made before his increasing weakness should set it aside; his parting from Maurice, therefore, he dreaded as a final one. Mrs. Costello had vaguer, but equally oppressive forebodings. She saw that in all probability a few weeks longer would find her peaceful home deserted, and herself and Lucia fugitives. Even if Maurice, transported into a new world with new interests and incalculably brighter prospects, should still retain his affection for them—and that she scarcely doubted—how could he ever again be to them what he had been? far less, what she had hoped he might be?

When Maurice returned, earlier than they expected, from the town, he found them still together. Mrs. Costello soon rose to return home, having seen to the last possible arrangement for the traveller's comfort. He proposed to accompany her, and say good-bye to Lucia, and they left the house together.

"I want to ask you to do me another kindness yet," he said, as soon as they had left the house. "My father, I am sure, will not tell me the truth about himself; he will be terribly lonely, and I am afraid of his health suffering more than it has done. He thinks it a duty to my mother, that I should go to England now; but it will certainly be my duty to him to come back, at all risks, if he feels my being away as much as I fear he will."

"You may at least depend upon one thing," she answered, "we will do all we can to take care of him."

"Thank you, that I know. But, Mrs. Costello, I should be so glad if you would write to me, and so give me the comfort of knowing exactly how he is."

"Certainly I will. You shall have a regular bulletin every mail if you like."

"Indeed, I should like it. And you will send me news also of yourself?"

Mrs. Costello sighed.

"I am forgetting," she said, "and making promises I may not be able to keep. I do not know how long I may be here, or where I may be three months hence."

Maurice looked at her in surprise. That she, who for twelve years had never quitted her home for a single night, should speak thus of leaving it without visible cause or preparation, seemed almost incredible.

She answered his look.

"Yes, I am serious. A dreadful trouble is threatening me, and to save myself and Lucia, I may have to go away. No one knows anything of it. Now that you are leaving us, I dare say so much to you."

"This, then, is why you have changed so, lately? Could not you have trusted me before?"

"It would have been useless; no one can help me."

Her voice seemed changed and broken, and she had grown ashy pale in alluding to the dreadful subject. Maurice could not bear to leave her in this uncertainty.

"Dear Mrs. Costello," he said, "if you had a son you would let him share your anxieties. I have so long been used to think of you almost as a mother, that I feel as if I had a kind of right to your confidence; and I cannot imagine any trouble in which you would be better without friends than with them."

"Sometimes," she answered, "it is part of our penalty to suffer alone. Hitherto I have done so. No, Maurice, though you could scarcely be dearer to me if you were my son, I cannot tell even you, at present, what I fear."

"At present? But you will, later?"

"Later, perhaps. Certainly, if ever we meet again."

"Which we shall do. You do not mean that you would not let me know where you go?"

"Perhaps I ought to mean it."

"It would be useless. Whenever you go I shall find you. You know—I am almost sure you know—that whether right or wrong, it is leaving you that troubles me now, even more than leaving my father."

Mrs. Costello smiled faintly.

"You do me justice," she said, "but I will alter your sentence a little for you, and say that you leave as much of your heart in my house as in your father's. I believe that; I am almost sorry now to believe it."

"Why should you be sorry? Do you think that there is no chance that in time things may be more hopeful for me than they are at present?"

"More hopeful for both our wishes, you might say; but, Maurice, my day-dreams of many years past may have to be given up with my dear little home."

"Do not say so, if, indeed, your wishes are the same as mine. I have faith in time and patience."

"Do not let us say more on the subject—it is too tempting. I, too, must try to have faith in time."

"And you will write to me regularly?"

"As long as I am here."

"And remember that I am not to be shaken off. I belong to you; and you are never to trust anybody else to do a thing for you which I could have done. You will promise me that, won't you?"

"My dear boy, don't make me regret your going more than I should do. In any case, I shall miss you daily."

They had reached the Cottage, and Lucia came out to meet them.

"How slowly you came!" she cried. "I thought you never meant to arrive. Mamma, you look dreadfully tired. What have you been doing to her, Maurice?"

She was talking fast, to keep, if possible, their attention from herself; for, to confess the truth, she had been indulging in a little cry all alone, and did not care that her red eyelids should betray her; but she might have spared the trouble. No word or look of hers was likely to pass unnoticed in that last precious few minutes, though they all sat down together, and tried to talk of indifferent matters as if there had been the least possibility, just then, of any other thought than that of parting.

After a short time, Maurice rose.

"I must give my father the last hour," he said, "and the boat is due at six."

"But it does not ever leave before seven," Lucia answered, "and it is still a quarter to five."

"I have to meet it when it comes in. Mr. Bellairs is coming home by it, and I have various affairs to settle with him."

He looked at her as he said "Mr. Bellairs is coming," but there was no tell-tale change in her face; she had for the moment utterly forgotten Mr. Percy.

"If he had not been coming, you would have had to wait for him, I suppose?" she asked. "I wish he would stay away."

"There are, unfortunately, such things as posts and telegraphs even further west than Cacouna. I sent a telegram to meet him yesterday morning."

"Ah, yes, I suppose where there's a will there's a way."

She spoke pettishly, and he only answered by coming across and holding out his hand to say good-bye. She rose and put out both hers, intending to say, as she often did when she had been cross, "Don't be angry, Maurice, I did not mean it," but the words would not come. Her courage suddenly gave way, and she cried with all her heart.

At that moment Maurice felt that she was really his; he longed unspeakably to claim her once and for ever; but his old generous self-repression was too strong for the temptation, and he shrunk from taking advantage of her grief and her sisterly affection. But a brother has some privileges, and those he had a right to. Her face was hidden, but he bent down, and drawing away her hands for a moment, kissed her with something more than a brother's warmth, pressed Mrs. Costello's hand, and hurried away.

Lucia listened intently as the sound of his footsteps, and of the gate as he passed through it, died away. Then she raised her head, and pushing back her hair, came and sat down at her mother's feet, hiding her flushed face and laughing a little half hysterical laugh.

But the laugh was a complete failure, and broke down into a sob, which was followed by a great many others, enough to have satisfied Maurice himself. At last she checked herself. "What a baby I am!" she said.

Mrs. Costello stroked back gently the soft black locks which were falling loose over her lap.

"You are a child, Lucia. I have never been in any haste for you to be otherwise."

"But I am not such a child, really, mamma. Sixteen and a half! I ought to be very nearly a woman."

Mrs. Costello sighed.

"You will be a woman soon enough, my darling, be content as to that."

"All the sooner now I have nobody but you to keep me in order. Mamma, how shall we do without Maurice at Bella's wedding?"

When the 'Queen of the West' passed down the river that evening with Maurice on board, he could plainly distinguish two figures standing on the verandah of the Cottage, and recognize Mrs. Costello's black dress, and Lucia's softly flowing muslin, framed in the green branches of the vine and climbing roses. One of those roses went with him on his journey to remind him, if anything were needed to remind him, of the place to which, even more than to his father's house, his heart turned as home.

For a whole day Lucia had scarcely once remembered Mr. Percy; and that same day she had scarcely been a moment absent from his thoughts. Not that this had been at all the case during the whole of his absence from Cacouna. On the contrary, he had, in spite of his ill-humour at starting, found so many agreeable distractions in the course of his journey that, at the end of a week, he congratulated himself on being entirely cured of a very foolish and troublesome fancy. No sooner, however, had they begun their return—taking, it is true; a different route, and continuing to visit new places—than it appeared that the cure was not yet entirely complete; still he paid little attention to the returning symptoms, and suffered them to increase unchecked till, at the commencement of their last day's journey, the magnet had resumed all its former power, and he became positively impatient to find himself again at the Cottage.

Mr. Percy was not by any means so much in love as to be blind to the extreme inconvenience and impolicy of anything like a serious love affair with a little Canadian girl such as Lucia Costello; but in the meantime she attracted him delightfully, and he always trusted to good luck for some means of extrication, if matters should go a step further than he intended. As for the possibility of her suffering, that did not enter into his calculations; there would, of course, be some tears, and she would look prettier than ever through them; but women always shed tears and always wipe them away again, and forget them. So he came back quite prepared to enjoy the two or three weeks which still remained to him, by spending as many hours daily, as possible, in pursuit of what he knew at the bottom of his heart he neither expected nor wished to retain, when it was once gained.

The pleasure of rivalling and mortifying Maurice had been, at first, one of Percy's strongest incentives in his attentions to Lucia; and as he found that, do what he could, it was impossible to force "that young Leigh" to show either jealousy or mortification, he began to hate him. He had enough sense and tact not to betray this feeling either to Mrs. Costello or Lucia, but it only grew stronger for being repressed. Mr. Bellairs, for some reason, said nothing to his cousin of the telegram he received from Maurice at the town where they spent the last night of their tour; it was, therefore, without any idea of what had really happened that he perceived the father and son standing together on the wharf as the boat drew towards it. But as soon as he understood the cause of their being there, it occurred to him that this chance interview would be useful to him at the Cottage; he knew enough of women to guess that the smallest scrap of information about the traveller, even to be able to say, "I saw him on board the boat," would make him additionally welcome to them. Accordingly, he spoke to Maurice with more civility than usual, inquired to what part of England he was going, and gave him, in his usual lazy fashion, some information about railways and hotels which was likely to be useful to a stranger in the country. Having thus not only done himself good, but as he felt, displayed a most courteous and charitable spirit, he left Mr. Bellairs with the Leighs and walked up to the house, where Bella's bridal preparations had been going on vigorously during his absence.

These preparations were nearly finished, for only three days remained before that fixed for the wedding; and all had gone on smoothly, until the sudden news of Maurice's summons to England deranged the bridal party, and threw the bride into a fit of ill-humour from which Doctor Morton was the greatest sufferer. She would not be satisfied with any substitute either he or her sister could propose, and was the more unreasonable because she knew that when her brother-in-law (of whom she had really some little awe) should arrive, she would have to lay aside her whims, and consent to accept whoever could be found to take the office of groomsman at so short a notice. When he came, accordingly, she was quite silent and submissive—a short consultation ended in what she had expected; and Mr. Percy took Maurice's place in the programme. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bellairs were altogether pleased that it should be so, but they comforted themselves with the idea that he would very shortly be leaving Canada, and that as he and Lucia would necessarily see much of each other while he did remain at Cacouna, their being associated together on that one day could not be of any great consequence.

The next morning, therefore, when Mr. Percy made his appearance at the Cottage, he had much to tell. But Lucia was still thinking more of Maurice than of him; she was unusually quiet, and more inclined to talk of England and to learn all she could of the voyage thither and of the journey from Liverpool to Norfolk, than to occupy herself either with the wedding or with the incidents of his tour on the Lakes. For the first time Mr. Percy was alarmed; he began to think it possible that during his absence, Maurice had so well used his time as to deprive him of the influence which he had before acquired over Lucia's mind; and this idea caused him suddenly to fancy that it was absolutely necessary to his happiness that he should displace Maurice altogether from her thoughts, even if, to do so, he should have to devote himself to her in the most serious earnest.

So Mr. Bellairs' stratagem failed. Before the two days, with their constant comings and goings, were over, Mrs. Costello saw, with dismay, that not only was Mr. Percy so far awakened from his usual state of boredom as to be one of the most dangerous flatterers imaginable to a girl of sixteen, but that Lucia appeared to have yielded completely to an attraction which had now no counterpoise, since Maurice had left them.

Each day Lucia spent as long a time as she could with Mr. Leigh, and strangely enough, the old man seemed to feel less depression after Maurice was actually gone, than he had done in anticipating the separation. In the hours which Lucia passed with him, he took delight in talking to her of his wife, and her early home, describing it with that wonderful recollection of trifles which seems to return to old people when they speak of the incidents and scenes of their youth. And Lucia loved to listen, and to picture to herself Maurice making acquaintance with all these things which his father spoke of; and becoming necessary to the proud, childless possessor of such wealth and so fair a home, just as he had been necessary to them all, far away in the west. After all, these hours were the happiest of Lucia's life at that time. They brought her the consciousness of doing right—of doing what would please Maurice, whose approbation had, all her life, been one of her dearest rewards for "being good;" and she had also the actual enjoyment of these quiet conversations, coming in, as they did, between the more vivid and more troubled delights of feeling herself engrossed by a spell, to whose power she submitted with joy indeed, but also with trembling. Every time she now saw Bella, it appeared to her more entirely incomprehensible that any one could act as she was doing; the mere idea of a marriage where convenience, suitableness, common sense were the best words that could be used to account for it, began to seem revolting. She could not have explained why, yet she felt, at times, a positive repugnance to take any part in the celebration of so worldly, so loveless a contract.

It was in this humour that she came back from Cacouna the evening before the wedding. Bella had been more flippant than usual, until even Mrs. Bellairs had completely lost patience with her, and the incorrigible girl had only been stopped by the fear of her guardian's displeasure from insisting on driving Lucia home, while Doctor Morton, who had been all day absorbed by his patients, waited for her decision about some arrangements for their journey. Lucia could not help giving her what Bella called a lecture, but when she reached home and was seated in her usual place at her mother's feet, she was still puzzling over the subject, and over what Mrs. Costello had said when she first heard of the engagement.

"Mamma," she said, at last, "do you remember saying you thought Bella's might be a very happy marriage? I wonder if you think so still?"

"Why should not I? What is changed?"

"I don't know that anything is; but you know how tiresome she is. I cannot imagine how Doctor Morton bears it."

"Probably, he bears it because he thinks her tiresomeness will soon be over. When she is married and in her own house, she will have other things to think of besides teasing him."

"But, mamma, do you think she loves him?"

Mrs. Costello laughed. "Indeed, my dear, I can't tell. If she does not now, I suppose she intends to."

"But that can't be right. Mamma, I am certain you do not think that kind of marriage right."

"Not for all people, certainly. But for any one who is dear to me I would far rather have a marriage of 'that kind' than one founded on the hasty, utterly unreasonable fancy which girls often call love."

Lucia blushed crimson, but would not give up her point. "I am sure if I married a man I did not love, I should hate him in three months," she said.

"I do not think you and Bella are much alike," Mrs. Costello answered; "and as for her, perhaps it may comfort you to know that I have speculated a little on this subject, and I have some suspicion that there may be more sentiment in the affair then she allows."

Lucia started up. "Really, mamma, I am so glad," she cried. "Only, why should she be so stupid?"

"I don't think even you, Lucia, would be pleased to see Bella and Doctor Morton enacting the same role as Magdalen and Harry Scott."

"I am sure I should not. It would be too ridiculous. But just look at Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs, they seem perfectly happy; and Mr. and Mrs. Leigh must have been so, in spite of everything. Maurice told me he believed his mother had never regretted her marriage; and that was certainly a love match."

"Mine was a 'love match,' Lucia, and brought me misery unimaginable. Hush, say no more at present."



CHAPTER VIII.

Bella's wedding-day rose as fair and bright as a day could be. The waning summer seemed to have returned to the freshness of early June, and to have determined that the bride, whatever else might be wanting, should have all the blessing sunshine could give her. Lucia, however, after that first eager look out at the weather which we naturally give on the morning of a fete-day, began to be conscious of a mood far too depressed and uneasy to be in harmony with either the weather or the occasion. Partly perhaps it was that her eyes had turned from habit to Maurice's window, which when he was at home was always open early, but whose closed up, solitary look now, reminded her of his absence; partly that the words her mother had spoken the previous evening lingered in her mind, and not only brought back more forcibly than ever all her puzzled and anxious thought about the past and future, but seemed to throw a dark but impalpable cloud over the happiness of the present.

But there was too much business to be done for her to spend time in dreaming, and by the time she was ready for breakfast, the inclination to dream had almost past away. After breakfast, and after the various daily affairs which in the small household fell to her share to attend to, there were flowers to be gathered, and a short visit to Mr. Leigh to be paid; and by the time all this was done, it was time to dress.

If this dressing was a longer process than usual, and if Lucia was a little fanciful and hard to please over it, no one need be surprised. Everybody knows that at a wedding, the bridesmaids rank next in importance to the bride, and far before the bridegroom, who, for that day at least, sinks into the most miserable insignificance. But it was not only a perfect consciousness of the place in the eyes of the multitude which she was expected to fill that made Lucia whimsical; much stronger than even that, was the desire to please one,—the shy wish to be admired, to see that she was so, possibly to hear it. She wondered to herself whether she would look very awkward and rustic beside Lord Lastingham's handsome daughters, and whether a certain Lady Adeliza, whose name had somehow reached her ears, was much more beautiful than she could ever hope to be. Poor child! her uneasiness on that point would certainly have ceased if she could have peeped into Mr. Percy's brain and seen the two portraits he carried about with him there,—herself fresh and lovely as Psyche when she captivated Love himself, and Lady Adeliza, highly distinguished and a little faded, but, for a poor man, a very desirable match. She would have failed, probably, to understand that last qualification, or to guess how it could completely outweigh youth, beauty, and love, together; and so would have felt even more joyous and less diffident than she did, when at last the important business was finished, and she stepped into the carriage which was to take her to Mrs. Bellairs'.

There she found Bella, for once tolerably subdued, and submitting with more patience than anybody expected of her, to be dressed by her sister and Magdalen Scott. The moment she saw Lucia, however, she whirled herself round out of their hands, and vowed she would not do another thing until she had had time to look at her bridesmaids both together.

"You are perfectly charming!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands in mock ecstasy. "It's quite useless for me to dress, Elise. Who will look at me when they are to be seen?"

"Don't be absurd, Bella. It is time you were ready now."

"I'm in despair, my dear. Give me any shabby old dress, and here, Lucia, put this thing on, and be the bride instead of me."

She caught up her veil and threw it over Lucia's head before any one could stop her.

"You must change the bridegroom as well then," said Magdalen, rather maliciously, "and perhaps she might not object."

"What a pity Maurice is gone! It will have to be Mr. Percy, Lucia," cried Bella, loosing the veil to clap her hands.

"Be silent, Bella," said Mrs. Bellairs, "and finish dressing at once, unless you intend me to leave you."

Lucia, flushed and half angry, had by this time freed herself from the veil and smoothed her hair. Bella, a little sobered by her sister's annoyance, returned to her toilette and was soon ready to go downstairs.

In the drawing-room the guests were rapidly assembling. A space near one end had been kept clear, but every other corner soon filled; and the party overflowed into Mrs. Bellairs' own little room adjoining. Mr. and Mrs. Bayne were among the last arrivals, and punctual to the appointed time came the bridegroom and Harry Scott.

A little change and flutter of the colour on Bella's cheek, when the well-known knock was heard, showed that she was not entirely without trepidation, but she rose quietly, took a last look at herself in the glass, and was standing ready when her brother-in law came to fetch her. In the hall, the bridegroom and his two friends met them—the drawing-room door opened, and, with a soft rustle and gleam of white dresses, the little party passed up through the crowd, and took their places before the clergyman.

There was no want of seriousness in Bella now. She had become so extremely pale that Mrs. Bellairs watched her anxiously; but except that her responses were made in a perfectly clear and audible tone, without the smallest tremulousness, or appearance of what one of her neighbours called "proper feeling," she was a most exemplary bride—even to the point of looking prettier than she had ever been known to do before, and almost eclipsing her bridesmaids. But, the ceremony over, she did not remain long so unlike herself. She was quiet, certainly, but as gay, mischievous, and childish as ever.

Breakfast followed the marriage almost immediately. It was, of course, as brilliant an affair as the resources of Cacouna could produce, and everybody really seemed to enjoy themselves. The newly-married pair were in all eyes but Lucia's so well and happily matched, and had so reasonable a prospect of being content with each other and their fortunes, that there did not seem to be a single cloud on the day. The same boat which had carried Maurice away three days before, took the bride and bridegroom on their tour, and not long after, the guests who had dispersed after breakfast began to reassemble for the evening dance. Lucia and Magdalen, at the window of what had been Bella's room, amused themselves by watching the arrivals and talking over the event of the morning.

"Did you ever see such a girl as Bella?" said Magdalen. "It seems as if she could never be serious for a moment. She went off laughing as if she were just coming back in half an hour."

"Why should not she? She is not going away as some people do, hundreds of miles from all her old friends."

"No, but then it must be a kind of parting; she will never be with her sister again as she used to be. I am sure I should have cried. There is something dreadful in it, I think. It seems like leaving all one's youth behind."

Magdalen sighed rather affectedly. Lucia laughed.

"People should not marry till they are old, according to that. I don't quite believe you think so, however. But, you know, Bella always declared a bride ought not to cry. I wonder if she will be any graver now she is Mrs. Morton?"

"What do you think Harry says about the doctor?"

"What?"

"He says Bella will find a difference between him and her guardian. Mr. Bellairs used to let her spend her money just as she liked, and give away a great deal, but Doctor Morton looks too sharply after the dollars and cents for that. He never lets himself be cheated out of a farthing, and never gives anything away."

"I don't like people who are quite so careful, to be sure; but Bella used to be rather extravagant sometimes."

"Indeed she was. I can't think how she will do, so good-natured as she is, if her husband is so dreadfully hard."

"Perhaps Harry is mistaken, though. Come, we must go down."

"You will have to dance Maurice's quadrille with Mr. Percy to-night, Lucia; are not you sorry?"

Lucia blushed. "Poor Maurice!" she said, and they went downstairs. Magdalen was right. Lucia danced with Percy, and thought no more of Maurice. The evening passed too quickly; it seemed as if so much happiness ought to last, but twelve o'clock came, and the elder people began to disappear. Mrs. Bellairs had left the room where the dancers were for a few minutes, and Lucia found her, looking tired and worried, in a small one which was quite deserted.

"I think I ought to go home," she said. "It is getting late. But, dear Mrs. Bellairs, how dreadfully tired you look!"

"I am tired; but weddings don't happen very often. Have you been enjoying yourself?"

"Oh! yes, so much. I don't think there ever was such a delightful party. It is only a pity Bella could not be here, and Maurice."

"I am afraid Maurice would not have enjoyed himself so much as you have done. Lucia, I am a little vexed with you, though I do not know whether I ought to say so."

Lucia hung her head for a moment, and then raised it saucily, confident that, as she stood half in shadow, her glowing cheeks could not be seen.

"Why are you vexed with me?" she asked.

But it was not so easy to answer the question straightforwardly, and Mrs. Bellairs paused, half repenting that she had spoken.

"Do you know," she said, "what people are beginning to call you? They say that you are a flirt; and that is not a desirable character for a girl to acquire."

Lucia's cheeks burned in good earnest now, but it was with anger, not shame.

"But it is not true. I am not a flirt. It is quite absurd to say so. You know I am not, Mrs. Bellairs."

She was right. This was not at all the accusation which her friend had in her heart to make, though people did say it, and Mrs. Bellairs had heard them.

Lucia turned around. "I will get ready to go," she said. But some one was standing close beside her.

"Mr. Percy!" she exclaimed angry and annoyed, while Mrs. Bellairs hastily congratulated herself that he had neither been mentioned nor alluded to.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I came in this instant to look for you for our waltz. Some one told me you were here."

But Lucia could not recover her temper in a moment.

"It is very late," she said, "and I am too tired to dance any more—pray excuse me;" and she walked out of the room with the most dignified air in the world, leaving Mr. Percy in considerable surprise and some offence. There was something so charming, however, in her little air of pride and displeasure, that he admired her more then ever; while she, quite unconscious of the effect her ill-humour had produced, made haste to prepare for her drive home, but found an opportunity at the last moment to throw her arms round Mrs. Bellairs' neck and whisper, as she said good-night,

"Don't be vexed with me. Indeed I shall never be a flirt."

As usual, on Lucia's return from any evening amusement, Mrs. Costello herself opened the door of the Cottage on her arrival. They went together to the parlour for a few minutes, and afterwards to Lucia's room, but it was not until her mother left her that it struck the poor child that some new alarm or distress had happened.

"I shall not go to sleep," she said to herself, "but wait and ask mamma when she comes in;" but youth and fatigue were too strong for her resolution, and she was soon fast asleep. It was not, indeed, till dawn that Mrs. Costello came; her night had been spent like so many before it, in painful thought and vigil; but before she slept, she had, as she hoped, fixed clearly and definitely her plans for the future. To have done this, was in itself a kind of relief. She slept at last calmly, and woke in the morning with a sensation of certainty and renewed courage, which she had long been without.

At breakfast she was so cheerful and had so many questions to ask about the previous day, that Lucia readily persuaded herself that she had no need to be uneasy.

She did indeed say, "Have you heard from Mr. Strafford?" but Mrs. Costello's answer satisfied her: "I had a note yesterday evening. He is coming up, and may be here to-morrow," and no more was said.

She found when she went over, soon after breakfast, to Mr. Leigh's, that the post of the evening before had brought him also a letter, full of interest to them all. It was from Maurice; and though it only described his journey to New York, his stay there, and the steamer in which he had taken his passage for England, it seemed for the moment almost to bring him back home. They lingered over it, as people do over the first letter, and amused themselves by guessing how far he could yet be on his voyage; whether the weather, which at Cacouna had been fair and calm, would have been good or bad for those far out on the Atlantic. That day neither Lucia nor Mr. Leigh cared for newspaper or book. They had plenty to talk about, for when the subject of the letter was completely finished, there still remained the wedding, of which Mr. Leigh said Maurice would be sure to demand a full account. So they talked hour after hour, and forgot how time was going, until Mrs. Costello, growing uneasy, came to look for her daughter, and found them still absorbed in their gossip.

But when the afternoon began to be almost over, and there had been no other interruptions to their quiet, Lucia found the interest of yesterday worn out, and felt a vague want of something beyond her mother's or Mr. Leigh's companionship. Mr. Percy's usual visit had not been paid, and she could not help wondering whether he stayed away because he was offended with her last night; whether he would come yet, whether he had heard what Mrs. Bellairs had said, or what she answered; and while she wondered, her attention grew so engrossed that she did not hear when her mother spoke to her, until the words had been twice repeated.

Mrs. Costello, at last, touched her arm.

"Are you asleep, Lucia?" she said. "I have spoken to you two or three times already."

"Have you, mamma? I am very sorry. I believe I was half asleep."

"You should have a walk. You have not been further than Mr. Leigh's all day."

"I do not wish to go. I am quite content here, and I will not go to sleep again. Tell me what you were going to say?"

"Something of so little consequence that I have forgotten it. But do go, like a good child, and have a little walk. You must go to-morrow to see Mrs. Bellairs, but to-day I dare say she is glad to be quiet."

Lucia went reluctantly, put on her hat, and started. She was so accustomed to walking alone that she never thought of objecting on that score, and turned, without deliberation, along the road that led to Cacouna. It was a very quiet country road, running along the course of the river; sometimes quite close to the bank, sometimes, as at the Cottage, leaving room for a house and garden. The bank itself was high and generally precipitous, but in some places it sloped more gradually and was covered with soft turf. On the opposite, or American side, the land was lower, and a little of town which lay almost opposite to Cacouna was girdled in on all sides by pine-woods, the tops of which showed like a black fringe against the brilliant light and colour of the sunset sky. This contrast of brightness and darkness in the distance, was heightened by the fainter, but still vivid gleam of the water, as the river, stretching away in an unbroken sheet more than half a mile in width, caught and reflected the changing colours of the clouds. This view, which she had seen daily ever since she could remember, seemed always to possess a new charm for Lucia; whatever might be her humour, it was certain to subside into the same calm and almost reverent attention while she watched the scene reach its most perfect splendour, and then fade softly and gradually into night.