A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 | Page 5

child, Mrs. Bellairs has your mother's promise, and I do
not see how you can break a positive engagement without better
reason."
She stood silent, looking down.
"Are you thinking of that foolish conversation at dinner to-day? I
wonder Mrs. Bellairs should have repeated it."
"It was Bella Latour who told me."
"Ah," said Maurice, "I forgot her. Of course it was. Well, at any rate,
think no more of it."
"That's very easily said," she answered dolorously "but I do think it's
not right," she added with energy, the hot colour rushing into her
cheeks, "to speak about one so. It is quite impertinent."
Maurice laughed. "Upon my word I believe very few young ladies
would agree with you; however, I assure you it would be giving the
enemy an advantage to stay away to-morrow, and I suppose, if I
constitute myself your highness's body-guard, you will not be afraid of
any more impertinence of the same kind."
He said "Good-night," and ran down the steps. As he passed along the
path under the verandah where she stood, she took one of the half-faded

roses from her belt and flung it at him. He caught it and with mock
gallantry pressed it to his heart; but as he turned through the wicket and
along the footpath which led to his home close by, he continued
twirling the flower in his fingers. Once it dropped, and without thinking
he stooped, and picked it up. He carried it into the house with him, and
into his own room, where he laid it down upon his writing-table and
forgot it.
Meanwhile, Margery had fastened doors and windows at the cottage,
and soon all was silent and dark, except the glimmer of Mrs. Costello's
lamp which often burned far into the night. Lucia had been long asleep
when her mother stole into her room for that last look which it was her
habit to take before she lay down. It was a little white chamber which
had been fitted up twelve years before for a child's use; but the child
had grown almost into a woman, and there were traces of her tastes and
occupations all about. There was a little book-shelf, where Puss in
Boots, and Goldsmith's History of England, still kept their places,
though the Princess had stepped in between them; there was a drawing
of the cottage executed under Maurice's teaching; here was a little
work-basket, and there a half-written note. Enough moonlight stole in
through the window to show distinctly the lovely dark face resting on
the pillow, and surrounded by long hair, glossy, and black as jet. Mrs.
Costello stood silently by the bedside.
A kind of shudder passed over her. "She is lovely," she said to herself;
"but that terrible beauty! If she had had my pale skin and hair, I should
have feared less; but she has nothing of that beauty from me. Yet
perhaps it is the best; the whole mental nature may be mine, as the
whole physical is----" Her hand pressed strongly upon her heart. "I
have been at peace so long," she went on, "yet I always knew trouble
must come again, and through her; but if it were only for me, it would
be nothing. Now she must suffer. I had thought she might escape. But it
is the old story, the sins of the fathers----Can no miseries of mine be
enough to free her?"
She turned away into her own room, and shut the door softly, so as not
to wake her child; yet firmly, as if she would shut out even that child

from all share in her solitary burden.
CHAPTER II.
Maurice's prediction of a fine day proved true. At twelve o'clock the
weather was as brilliant as possible; the sky blue and clear, the river
blue and glittering. The Mermaid, a small steamer, lay in the wharf,
gaily decorated with flags; and throngs of people began to gather at the
landing and on the deck. Among a group of the most important guests,
stood the acknowledged leader of the expedition, the 'Queen of
Cacouna,' Mrs. Bellairs. She was talking fast and merrily to everybody
in turn, giving an occasional glance to the provision baskets as they
were carried on board, and meantime keeping an anxious look-out
along the bank of the river, for the appearance of her own little carriage,
which ought to have been at the rendezvous long ago.
A very handsome man stood beside her. He was of a type the more
striking because specimens of it so rarely found their way in to the
fresh, vigorous, hard-working Colonial society. Remarkably tall, yet
perfectly proportioned, the roughest backwoodsman might have envied
his apparent physical strength; polished in manner to a degree which
just, and only just, escaped