But the laugh was a complete failure, and broke down into a sob, which
was followed by a great many others, enough to have satisfied Maurice
himself. At last she checked herself. "What a baby I am!" she said.

Mrs. Costello stroked back gently the soft black locks which were
falling loose over her lap.

"You are a child, Lucia. I have never been in any haste for you to be
otherwise."

"But I am not such a child, really, mamma. Sixteen and a half! I ought
to be very nearly a woman."

Mrs. Costello sighed.

"You will be a woman soon enough, my darling, be content as to that."

"All the sooner now I have nobody but you to keep me in order. Mamma,
how _shall_ we do without Maurice at Bella's wedding?"

When the 'Queen of the West' passed down the river that evening with
Maurice on board, he could plainly distinguish two figures standing on
the verandah of the Cottage, and recognize Mrs. Costello's black dress,
and Lucia's softly flowing muslin, framed in the green branches of the
vine and climbing roses. One of those roses went with him on his journey
to remind him, if anything were needed to remind him, of the place to
which, even more than to his father's house, his heart turned as home.

For a whole day Lucia had scarcely once remembered Mr. Percy; and that