ish; it was clear that
whatever race had bestowed Lucia's dower of beauty, it had come to her
through her father.

Mother and daughter often sat as now, silent and idle both; Lucia
dreaming after her girlish fashion, and Mrs. Costello content to wait
and let her life be absorbed in her child's. But to-night Lucia was
dreaming of England, the far-away "home" which she had never seen, but
of which almost all her elder friends spoke, and where her mother's
childhood and girlhood had been passed. She still leaned her head back
lazily as she began to talk.

"Are English sunsets as lovely as ours, Mamma?"

Mrs. Costello smiled. "I can't tell," she said; "they are as lovely to
me,--but I only see them in memory."

"You have often talked about going home, when shall it be?"

"I have talked of _your_ going, not of mine--_that_ will never be."

"Mamma!" Lucia raised her head. She looked at her mother inquiringly,
but somehow she felt that Mrs. Costello could not talk to her just then.
A troubled expression crossed her own face for a moment, then she put
down the ball of wool and laid her arms caressingly round her mother's
waist.

But both again remained silent for many minutes, so silent that the
faint wash of the river against the bank sounded plainly, and a
woodpecker could be heard making his last tap-tap on a tree by the
garden-gate.

By-and-by Mrs. Costello spoke again, as if there had been no
interruption. "But about this picnic, Lucia; do you think it would be a
great sacrifice to give it up?"

"A great sacrifice? Why, mamma, you must think me a baby to ask such a
question. I stayed away from the best one last summer without breaking
my heart."

"Last summer I thought you too young for large parties, but this year I
have let you go--and, indeed, I do not forbid your going this time.
Understand that clearly, my child. I have only fancy, not reason, to set
against your wishes."

"Mother, you are not fanciful. Since you wish me to stay at home, I
wish it also. Forget the picnic altogether."

She sprang up, kissed her mother's forehead, and darted away to the
further end of the verandah, bursting out into a gay song as she leaned
over to gather a spray of pale prairie roses that climbed up the
trellis-work. The pretty scentless blossoms were but just caught, when a
rattling of wheels was heard on the stony lane which led from the
high-road to the cottage.

"Who can be coming now? Margery is out, mamma, and t