home; Mr. Bellairs drew up, therefore, at the end of the lane, and Lucia
sprang out. Mr. Percy, however, insisted on going with her. He
dismounted and led his horse beside her.

"I am sure you will be wet," she said; "you forget that I am a Canadian
girl, and quite used to running about by myself."

"That may be very well," he answered, "when you have no one at your
disposal for an escort, but at present the case is different."

She blushed a little and smiled. "In England would people be shocked at
my going wherever I please alone?"

"I don't know; I believe I am forgetting England and everything about
it. Do you know that I ought to be there now?"

"Ought? that is a very serious word. But you are not going yet?"

"Not just yet. Miss Costello, your mother is an Englishwoman, why don't
you persuade her to bring you to England."

"My mother will never go to England." Lucia repeated the words slowly
like a lesson learned by rote; and as she did so, an old question rose
again in her mind,--why not?

"Yet you long to go--you have told me so."

"Yes, oh! I do long to go. It seems to me like Fairyland."

It was Mr. Percy's turn to smile now. "Not much like Fairyland," he