fter a minute Lucia put her arms
tightly round her mother, and laying her head upon her shoulder, cried,
not passionately, but with a complete abandonment of all self-restraint.
Mrs. Costello did not try to check those natural and restoring tears.
She soothed her child by fond motherly touches, kissed her cheek or
smoothed her hair, but said not a word until the whole dull weight that
had been pressing on her had melted away. There was something strangely
forlorn in their circumstances which both felt, and neither liked to
speak of to the other. Leaving behind all the friends, all the
associations of so many years, they were going alone--a feeble and
perhaps dying woman, and a young girl--into a strange world, where every
face would be new, and even their own language would grow unfamiliar to
their ears. Even the hope which had brightened this prospect to Lucia's
eyes, looked very dim, now that the time for proving it was at hand; and
of all others, the person who occupied her tenderest if not her most
frequent thoughts was the one who best deserved that she should think of
him--Maurice Leigh.

Two days of their voyage passed without events. They began to feel
accustomed to their ship-life, and to make some little acquaintance with
other passengers. In spite of the cold, Lucia spent a good many hours on
deck. She used to go with Mrs. Costello every morning for a few quick
turns up and down, and then, when her mother was tired, she would wrap
herself up in the warmest cloaks and shawls that she could find, and
take her seat in a quiet corner, where she could lose sight of all that
went on about her and, with her face turned towards Canada, see nothing
but the boundless sea and sky. On the third day she was sitting in this
manner. There were a good many persons on deck but she was left
tolerably undisturbed. Occasionally a lady would stop and speak to
her--the men, who were not altogether blind to her beauty, would have
liked perhaps to do the same, if her preoccupied air had not made a kind
of barrier about her, too great to be broken through without more
warrant than a two days' chance association; but she was thinking or
dreaming, and never troubled herself about them.

The day was very bright, and there was a ceaseless pleasure in watching
the ripples of the sea as they rose into the cold silvery sunlight and
then passed on into the shadow of the ship; or in tracing far away, the
broad even track marked by edges of t