her whims, and consent to accept whoever could be found to take the
office of groomsman at so short a notice. When he came, accordingly,
she was quite silent and submissive--a short consultation ended in what
she had expected; and Mr. Percy took Maurice's place in the programme.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bellairs were altogether pleased that it should be
so, but they comforted themselves with the idea that he would very
shortly be leaving Canada, and that as he and Lucia would necessarily
see much of each other while he did remain at Cacouna, their being
associated together on that one day could not be of any great
consequence.

The next morning, therefore, when Mr. Percy made his appearance at the
Cottage, he had much to tell. But Lucia was still thinking more of
Maurice than of him; she was unusually quiet, and more inclined to talk
of England and to learn all she could of the voyage thither and of the
journey from Liverpool to Norfolk, than to occupy herself either with
the wedding or with the incidents of his tour on the Lakes. For the
first time Mr. Percy was alarmed; he began to think it possible that
during his absence, Maurice had so well used his time as to deprive him
of the influence which he had before acquired over Lucia's mind; and
this idea caused him suddenly to fancy that it was absolutely necessary
to his happiness that he should displace Maurice altogether from her
thoughts, even if, to do so, he should have to devote himself to her in
the most serious earnest.

So Mr. Bellairs' stratagem failed. Before the two days, with their
constant comings and goings, were over, Mrs. Costello saw, with dismay,
that not only was Mr. Percy so far awakened from his usual state of
boredom as to be one of the most dangerous flatterers imaginable to a
girl of sixteen, but that Lucia appeared to have yielded completely to