"Is she? I don't believe I knew it. You see I have known her all her life--I know every one of her qualities, I believe, good and bad; and all her ways. I knew she had the purest nature and the warmest, bravest heart a woman could have; but I have thought very little about her beauty by itself."

"Well, then, let me tell you, she only needs to be seen--she is quite lovely; and as for the rest, I do not know yet, but I am very much inclined to think you may be right. At all events, we are going to be good friends, and by-and-by I shall know all about her."

CHAPTER XIII.

Lucia came home late in the evening. Mrs. Costello, resuming her old habits, had sent the servant to bed, and herself admitted her daughter.

They went into the drawing-room together to talk over the day's doings.

"You look very bright," Mrs. Costello said with her hand on Lucia's shoulder. "You have enjoyed yourself?"

"Yes, mamma, _so_ much. You know I was a little afraid of Lady Dighton, and dreadfully afraid of Sir John. But they have both been so good to me; just like people at Cacouna who had known me all my life."

Mrs. Costello smiled. She was very glad this friendship seemed likely to prosper. Yet it was not very wonderful that any one should like Lucia.

"What have you been doing?"

"We went to Versailles, and saw the gardens. We had no time for the Palace; but Maurice is going to take me there another day. Then we came home and had dinner; and where do you think we have been since?"

"Where?"

"To the theatre! Oh, mamma, it was so nice! You know, I never was in one before."

Lucia clasped her hands, and looked up at her mother with such a perfectly innocent, childish, face of delight, that it was impossible not to laugh.

"What a day of dissipation!"

"Yes; but just for once, you know. And I could not help it."

"I do not see why you should have wished to help it. How about your French? Could you understand the play?"

"Pretty well. It was very shocking, you know. Lady Dighton says the best French plays always are. I cried a little, and I was so ashamed of myself; only I saw some other people crying too, so then I did not mind so much."

"You did not really see much of Lady Dighton, then, if you were driving all afternoon and at the theatre all evening?"

"Oh! yes; we had a long talk before dinner. When we came in, she said, 'Now, Maurice, you must just amuse yourself how you can for an hour. Sir John has English papers to read, and Miss Costello and I are going to my room to have a chat.' So she took me off to her dressing-room, and we were by ourselves there for quite an hour."

"In which time, I suppose, you talked about everything in heaven and earth."

"I don't know. No, indeed; I believe we talked most about Maurice."

"He is a favourite of hers."

"She says she liked him from the first. She is so funny in her way of describing things. She said, 'We English are horribly benighted with regard to you colonists; and my notions of geography are elementary.

When grandpapa told me he had sent for his heir from Canada, I went to Sir John and asked him where Canada was. He got a big map and began to show me; but all I could understand was, that it was in North America.

I saw an American once. I suppose I must have seen others, but I remember one particularly, for being an American; he was dreadfully thin and had straight black hair, and a queer little pointed black beard, and I _think_ he spoke through his nose; and really I began to be haunted by a recollection of this man, and to think I was going to have a cousin just like him.' Then she told me about going over to Hunsdon and finding he had arrived. She said that before the end of the day they were fast friends."

"He was not like what she expected, then?"

"Just the opposite. She made me laugh about that. She said, 'I like handsome people, and I like an English style of beauty for men. My poor dear Sir John is not handsome, though he has a good face; but really when a man is good-looking _and_ looks good, I can't resist him.'"

"You seem to have been much occupied with this question of looks. Did you spend the whole hour talking about them?"

"Mamma! Why that was only the beginning."

"What was the rest, then? or some of it, at least?"

"She told me how good Maurice was to his grandfather, and how fond Mr.

Beresford grew of him. Do you know that Maurice was just going to try to get away to Canada at the very time Mr. Beresford had his last attack?

Lady Dighton says he was excessively anxious to go, and yet he never showed the least impatience or disappointment when he found he could not be spared."

"He must have felt that he was bound to his grandfather."

"He nursed him just like a woman, Lady Dighton says, and one could fancy it. Could not you, mamma?"

"I don't find it difficult to believe anything good of Maurice."

"Oh! and then she told me about Hunsdon. She was born there, and lived there till she was married. She told me all about why Mr. Beresford left it to Maurice, and not to her. But, mamma, I cannot understand how Maurice can be so long away from home. I should think he must have quantities of things to attend to; and she told me Sir John was always busy, though his estate is not so large as Hunsdon. Only think, mamma, of Maurice, our Maurice, having more than ten thousand a year!"

"Well, dear, since we have come to talking of our neighbour's fortunes, I think we had better go to bed."

"Oh! yes; how thoughtless I am, keeping you up so. And I must be early to-morrow, for Lady Dighton is coming to see you, and Maurice wants me to go with him for a walk first. Not to see anything, but just for a walk."

Mrs. Costello lay down that night with a great feeling of content with regard to her daughter's future.

"Certainly," she thought, "Maurice may be satisfied with the affection she has for him; if it is not just the kind of love he wishes for, that is only because it has never entered her mind that he could be anything but a brother to her. She is so excessively childish in some things! I shall be glad now when she really does begin to understand. Only, must I part with her? Better that than that I should leave her alone; better even than that she should have to go among strange relatives."

Maurice had asked Lucia to walk with him for the sake of having her quite to himself for an hour, and perhaps of asking that much meditated question. He had specially bargained that they were not to "go anywhere;" but simply to choose a tolerably quiet road and go straight along it. Accordingly they started, and went slowly up the sunny slope towards the great arch, talking of yesterday, and of the trifles which always seemed interesting when they spoke of them together. After they had passed the barrier, they hesitated a little which road to take--they had already made several expeditions in this direction, and Lucia wanted novelty. Finally they took the road to Neuilly, and went on for a time very contentedly. But Maurice, after a while, fell into little fits of silence, thinking how he should first speak of the subject most important to him. He felt that there could be no better opportunity than this, and he was not cool enough to reflect that it was waste of trouble to try to choose his words, since if Lucia accepted him she would for ever think them eloquent; and if she refused him, would be certain to consider them stupid. She, on the other hand, was in unusually high spirits. It had occurred to her that Lady Dighton, who seemed to know everybody, would probably know Percy. She had begun already to lay deep plans for finding out if this was the case, and after that, where he was at present. She had thought of him so much lately, and so tenderly; she had remembered so often his earnestness and her own harshness in that last interview, that she felt as if she owed him some reparation, and as if his love were far more ardent than hers, and must needs be more stable also. The idea that she had advanced a step towards the happiness of meeting him again, added the last ingredient to her content. She could have danced for joy.

They walked a considerable distance, and Maurice had not yet found courage for what he wanted to say. Lucia began to think of her mother's loneliness, and proposed to return; he would have tempted her further, but a strange shyness and embarrassment seemed to have taken possession of him. They had actually turned round and begun to walk towards home before he had found a reason for not doing it.

"Lucia," he said abruptly, after one of the pauses which had been growing more and more frequent, "don't you wish to go over to England?"

"Of course I do," she answered with some surprise; "I wish we _could_ go. You know I always used to wish it."

"Why don't you try now you are so near?"

"Surely, Maurice, you know mamma cannot go."

"I remember hearing something about your grandfather having wished her not to do so. Forgive me if it is a painful subject; but do not you see that things are quite changed now?"

"Do you think she could, then? But I _don't_ see."

"Her father, I suppose, wished to avoid the chance of her marriage being gossipped about. His idea of her going back to England was naturally that she would go among her own relations and old acquaintance who knew the story. Now, I believe that she might go to any other part of the island--say Norfolk, for instance--and obey his wishes just as much as by staying in Paris."

"To Norfolk? Why, then, we should be near you? Oh! do try to persuade her."