“I wonder what is the matter with Mrs. Costello,” said one.  “Lucia seems to me to go out very little lately.”

“She is better employed at home,” replied another.

“You should have brought Mr. Percy, Bella,” said Magdalen Scott.

“You did not invite him; and beside, I think we are better off without him.”

“Why?  Don’t you like him?”

“Tolerably well, but I am getting tired of him.”

“Tired of him already?”

“I’m not like you, Magdalen; I could not be content to spend my life looking at one person.”

Magdalen blushed a little, but answered rather sharply,

“You mean to be an old maid, I suppose, then?”

“I think I shall.  At any rate, I should if I were to be always required to be looking at or thinking about a man when I had married him.”

Mrs. Scott here called her daughter away, and May Anderson asked,

“Why are you always teasing Magdalen so, Bella?  She does not like it, I am sure.”

“She should not be so stupid.  Magdalen thinks her whole business in life is to sit still and look pretty for her cousin Harry’s benefit.  I wish she would wake up.”

“Harry is quite content seemingly.  He told George that he thought her prettier than Lucia Costello.”

“What idiots men are!” said Bella.  “I don’t believe they ever care about anything except a pretty face; and they have not even eyes to see that with.”

“They seem to see it well enough in some cases.  I do not know what there is in Lucia except her prettiness to attract them, and she never has any want of admirers.  There’s Maurice Leigh perfectly miserable about her this minute, and Mr. Percy, they say, continually running after her.”

“My dear May, you need not trouble your head about Maurice Leigh; he is quite able to take care of himself, and would not be at all obliged to you for pitying him.  As for Mr. Percy, the mere idea of his running anywhere or after anything!”

“Well, is not he perpetually at the Cottage?”

“He was not there yesterday.”

“No, because Lucia was in Cacouna.  I passed your house in the afternoon, and saw them both in the garden.”

“They are both fond of flowers.”

“I hear he goes to help her to garden.”

“Mr. Percy help anybody!”

“To hinder, then; I dare say Lucia finds it equally amusing.”

“Where is he this evening?  Did he go with Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs?”

“No.  And I was afraid I should have to stay at home and do the honours; but he had heard that I intended being here, and was polite enough to insist on my coming.  He was out when I left.”

“At the Cottage, of course.  No wonder Lucia could not come.”

While her friends thus charitably judged her, Lucia was, in truth, painfully and anxiously occupied by the illness of her mother.  Mr. Percy, aware of her engagement for the evening, had ridden over early in the afternoon and spent an hour or two lounging beside her, at the piano or on the verandah.  At last, when it grew nearly time for her to start for Mrs. Scott’s, he rose to go.