as
worth watching. Her wonderful beauty, and the unconscious grace of her
father's people, kept her from ever appearing countrified or awkward;
her simplicity was that of a lovely child, and was in no way discordant
with the higher nature she had shown in the bitter troubles and
perplexities of the past year. She felt safe now and hopeful,
inconceivably, absurdly hopeful--yet there was this difference between
the happiness of long ago and the happiness to-day, that then she
_could_ not believe in sorrow, and now she only _would_ not.

They went back to their hotel for another night. Next day they moved to
the apartment they had taken, and submitted themselves to the
ministrations of Claudine, their French version of Margery. Submitted is
exactly the right word for Lucia's behaviour, at any rate. Claudine
appeared to her to have an even greater than common facility of speech;
it only needed a single hesitating phrase to open the floodgates, and
let out a torrent. Accordingly, until her stock of available French
should increase, Lucia decided to take everything with the utmost
possible quietness. She would devote herself to her mother, and to
becoming a little acquainted with Paris, and give Claudine the fewest
possible occasions for eloquence.

Before the two days which Mr. Wynter spent with them in their new
dwelling were over, they had begun to feel tolerably settled. In fact,
Lucia's spirits, raised by excitement, were beginning to droop a
little, and her thoughts to make more and more frequent excursions in
search of the friends from whom she was so widely separated. She thought
most, it is true, of Percy, and her fancies about him were
rose-coloured; but she thought, also, a little sadly, of the dear old
home, and the Bellairs and Bella, and even Magdalen Scott, who had been
an old acquaintance, if never a very dear friend. She had many wondering
thoughts, too, about Maurice. Was he still in England? or was he in
Canada? was he at sea? would he come over to see them? would he even
know where to find them if he came? Of these last subjects she spoke
freely to her mother, only she kept utter silence as to Percy. So it
happened that Mrs. Costello, knowing her own estimate of her daughter's
lover, and strangely forgetting not only how different Lucia's had been,
but that in a nature essentially faithful, love increases instead of
dying, through time and absence, comforted herself, and believed that
all was now settled