an attraction which had now no counterpoise, since Maurice had left
them.

Each day Lucia spent as long a time as she could with Mr. Leigh, and
strangely enough, the old man seemed to feel less depression after
Maurice was actually gone, than he had done in anticipating the
separation. In the hours which Lucia passed with him, he took delight in
talking to her of his wife, and her early home, describing it with that
wonderful recollection of trifles which seems to return to old people
when they speak of the incidents and scenes of their youth. And Lucia
loved to listen, and to picture to herself Maurice making acquaintance
with all these things which his father spoke of; and becoming necessary
to the proud, childless possessor of such wealth and so fair a home,
just as he had been necessary to them all, far away in the west. After
all, these hours were the happiest of Lucia's life at that time. They
brought her the consciousness of doing right--of doing what would please
Maurice, whose approbation had, all her life, been one of her dearest
rewards for "being good;" and she had also the actual enjoyment of these
quiet conversations, coming in, as they did, between the more vivid and
more troubled delights of feeling herself engrossed by a spell, to whose
power she submitted with joy indeed, but also with trembling. Every time
she now saw Bella, it appeared to her more entirely incomprehensible
that any one could act as she was doing; the mere idea of a marriage
where convenience, suitableness, common sense were the best words that
could be used to account for it, began to seem revolting. She could not
have explained why, yet she felt, at times, a positive repugnance to
take any part in the celebration of so worldly, so loveless a contract.

It was in this humour that she came back from Cacouna the evening before
the wedding. Bella had been more flippant than usual, until even Mrs.