A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 | Page 9

possession of incomparably the prettiest
partner in the room, for he began almost immediately to feel less bored,
and positively roused himself to the extent of making some exertion to
please his reluctant companion.
Now, it was all very well for Lucia to be cross, and to nurse her
crossness to the last possible minute, but a girl of sixteen, however
pretty and however spoiled, is not generally gifted with sufficient
strength of mind or badness of temper, to remain quite insensible to the
good qualities of a handsome man, who evidently wishes to make
himself agreeable to her. When the man in question is the lion of the
day, probably his success becomes inevitable; at all events, Lucia
gradually recovered her good humour, and kept up her part of the
broken chat possible under the circumstances, with enough grace and
spirit to give to her extraordinary beauty the last crowning charm which
Percy had not, until then, found in it.
Thus they finished their quadrille in good humour with each other, but
as they left their place to rejoin Mrs. Bellairs, Maurice Leigh came into
the room by a side door. The sight of him reminded Mr. Percy of the
short dialogue he had heard.
"You are engaged for the next quadrille, are you not?" he asked Lucia.
"Yes, to Maurice. I promised it to him instead of the first."
"You were to have danced this one with him, then?"
She laughed. "It is a childish arrangement of ours," she said; "we
agreed, long ago, always to dance the first quadrille together, and
everybody knows of it, so no one asks me for that."
"I wonder at his being willing to miss his privilege to-night; you must
be very indulgent, not to punish him."

"Oh! you know he is acting as a kind of steward to-night and has so
many things to do. It was not his fault."
"And you would have waited patiently for him?"
"Patiently? I don't know. Certainly I should have waited, for no one but
a stranger would have asked me to dance."
"I hope, however, you forgive me."
They had reached Mrs. Bellair's, and she only answered by a smile as
she sat down. A minute after, she was carried off by another partner,
and Mr. Percy took possession of the vacant place.
The evening passed on. At the end of it, Mr. Percy, shut up in his own
room, surprised himself in the midst of a reverie the subject of which
was Lucia Costello; he actually found himself comparing her with a
certain Lady Adeliza Weymouth, of whom he had been supposed to be
épris the season before. But then Lady Adeliza had no particular claim
to beauty; she was "distinguished" and of a powerful family; as for
Lucia, on the other hand, she was----There! it was no use going off into
that question. A great deal more sense to go to bed.
Meantime Lucia, under Maurice's escort, was on her way home. They
had started, talking gaily enough, but before half the distance was
passed they grew silent.
After a long pause Maurice asked, "Are you very tired?"
Lucia's meditation had carried her so far away that she started at the
sound of his voice.
"Tired? oh, no! At least not very much."
"And you have enjoyed the day after all?"
"Pretty well. Not much, I think."
"I thought you looked happy enough this evening. Come, confess you

are glad you did not stay at home."
"Indeed, I will not; mamma, I am sure, wished me to stay?"
"Yet she made you come."
"Yes, because she thought I wanted to do so. Maurice, do you think she
looks ill?"
"No, I have not noticed it. Does she complain?"
"Mamma complain! A thing she never does. But it seems to me that
something is different. I can't tell what. She goes out less than ever, and
seems to dislike my leaving her." Lucia longed to say, "She has some
trouble; some heavy anxiety; can you guess what it is?" but she had an
instinctive consciousness, that even to this dear and tried friend, she
ought not to speak of a subject on which Mrs. Costello was invariably
silent. Even to herself, a certain darkness hung over her mother's past
life; there were years of it of which she felt utterly ignorant. Whatever
was the cloud of the present, it might be connected with the
recollections of those years; this thought checked her even while she
spoke.
Whether Maurice had any similar reason for reticence or not, he only
said, "I do not think she would hide anything from you which need give
you uneasiness. I advise you not to torment yourself causelessly."
"I am not tormenting myself; but I think yours is a miserable plan.