A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 | Page 9

is a safeguard to us--to you
especially. Think of these things; and do not suffer yourself to imagine
that there is a bar between you and Bella just now, when I know you
love her more than ever."
Lucia's head lay upon her mother's knee. Mrs. Costello's touch on the
soft hair, her tone of gentle reproof, and the thoughts her words called
up, brought tears, fast and thick, to her child's eyes. Lucia had shed few
tears in her life. Until lately she had known no cause for them; and
lately they had not come. With dry eyes and throbbing temples she had
gone through the most sorrowful hours; but now the spell seemed
broken, and a sense of calm and relief came with the change. Mrs.
Costello went on,--
"There is another reason why we must appear as we have always done.
Suspicion is not proof. Margery's story, and more, may be true, and yet
it may be that, three months hence, all, as regards ourselves, will be just
as it has been. We must not, through a blind fear of one calamity, put
ourselves in the way of another. Neither of us can look much at the
future to-night; but we must not forget that there is a future. So it is still
the old task which is before us, to keep our secret."
The voice had been very steady until the last word; but as that was
spoken, it faltered and failed so suddenly that Lucia looked up. She
sprang to her feet, but just in time. The over-tried strength had given
way, and Mrs. Costello had fallen back in a deep fainting fit.

CHAPTER IV.
Lucia dared not call Margery to her assistance. The consciousness of
having something to conceal made her dread the smallest self-betrayal.
She hastened, therefore, to do alone all that she could do for her
mother's recovery; but it was so long before she succeeded that she
grew almost wild with terror. At last, however, the deathly look passed
away, and with the very first moment of returning animation, the habit
of self-control returned also. Mrs. Costello smiled at her daughter's
anxious face.
"I am afraid," she said, "that you will have to get used to these attacks.
Do not be frightened; you see they pass off again."
"But you never used to have them?"
"No; but youth and strength cannot last for ever."
"Mamma! you are not old; you are not much more than forty yet."
"Forty-two in years; but there are some years that might count for ten."
"It is this horrible pressure upon you; you are being tortured to death!"
"Hush, my child. What I suffer is but the just and natural consequence
of what I did. Be patient, both for me and for yourself. By-and-by we
shall see that all is right."
Hard doctrine! and only to be learnt by long endurance. Lucia rebelled
against it, but she could not argue with her mother's pale face and
faintly spoken words to oppose her. She busied herself softly in such
little offices as her anxiety suggested, and they spoke no more that
night of the subjects nearest to their hearts.
But when Mrs. Costello was alone, she began to think of Maurice. She
felt, even before she began to think, that something which had been a
stay and prop to her hitherto had suddenly been snatched away, and she
had now to realize that this support was her confidence in him. For a

long time she had grown accustomed to rest upon the idea that a safe
and honourable future was secured for her child, and this had made
present trials and difficulties endurable. She had seen Percy's courtship
with bitter disappointment, although she had miscalculated its issue,
and through all her sympathy with Lucia, she had secretly rejoiced at
his dismissal; she had felt no scruples in hearing from Maurice, at the
very moment when his prospects had suddenly changed and brightened,
the assurance of his attachment, and she had received his note that very
day with a joy which almost resembled that which a girl feels who
hears from his own lips that her absent lover is faithful to her. To this
mother, cut off from every tie but that of motherhood, her child was the
one only absorbing interest; she had loved Maurice, but she knew now
that she had loved him chiefly as the representative of Lucia's future
safety and happiness. It had never occurred to her that her own strange
marriage, that the race or the character of her husband, which had been
recognized by both mother and daughter as insuperable obstacles in
Percy's case, would estrange the nobler and truer nature. The whole
miserable story would have to be told, she had thought, when