“I beg your pardon,” he said.  “I came in this instant to look for you for our waltz.  Some one told me you were here.”

But Lucia could not recover her temper in a moment.

“It is very late,” she said, “and I am too tired to dance any more—­pray excuse me;” and she walked out of the room with the most dignified air in the world, leaving Mr. Percy in considerable surprise and some offence.  There was something so charming, however, in her little air of pride and displeasure, that he admired her more then ever; while she, quite unconscious of the effect her ill-humour had produced, made haste to prepare for her drive home, but found an opportunity at the last moment to throw her arms round Mrs. Bellairs’ neck and whisper, as she said good-night,

“Don’t be vexed with me.  Indeed I shall never be a flirt.”

As usual, on Lucia’s return from any evening amusement, Mrs. Costello herself opened the door of the Cottage on her arrival.  They went together to the parlour for a few minutes, and afterwards to Lucia’s room, but it was not until her mother left her that it struck the poor child that some new alarm or distress had happened.

“I shall not go to sleep,” she said to herself, “but wait and ask mamma when she comes in;” but youth and fatigue were too strong for her resolution, and she was soon fast asleep.  It was not, indeed, till dawn that Mrs. Costello came; her night had been spent like so many before it, in painful thought and vigil; but before she slept, she had, as she hoped, fixed clearly and definitely her plans for the future.  To have done this, was in itself a kind of relief.  She slept at last calmly, and woke in the morning with a sensation of certainty and renewed courage, which she had long been without.

At breakfast she was so cheerful and had so many questions to ask about the previous day, that Lucia readily persuaded herself that she had no need to be uneasy.

She did indeed say, “Have you heard from Mr. Strafford?” but Mrs. Costello’s answer satisfied her:  “I had a note yesterday evening.  He is coming up, and may be here to-morrow,” and no more was said.

She found when she went over, soon after breakfast, to Mr. Leigh’s, that the post of the evening before had brought him also a letter, full of interest to them all.  It was from Maurice; and though it only described his journey to New York, his stay there, and the steamer in which he had taken his passage for England, it seemed for the moment almost to bring him back home.  They lingered over it, as people do over the first letter, and amused themselves by guessing how far he could yet be on his voyage; whether the weather, which at Cacouna had been fair and calm, would have been good or bad for those far out on the Atlantic.  That day neither Lucia nor Mr. Leigh cared for newspaper or book.  They had plenty to talk about, for when the subject of the letter was completely finished, there still remained the wedding, of which Mr. Leigh said Maurice would be sure to demand a full account.  So they talked hour after hour, and forgot how time was going, until Mrs. Costello, growing uneasy, came to look for her daughter, and found them still absorbed in their gossip.