and with the very first moment of returning animation, the habit of
self-control returned also. Mrs. Costello smiled at her daughter's
anxious face.

"I am afraid," she said, "that you will have to get used to these
attacks. Do not be frightened; you see they pass off again."

"But you never used to have them?"

"No; but youth and strength cannot last for ever."

"Mamma! you are not old; you are not much more than forty yet."

"Forty-two in years; but there are some years that might count for ten."

"It is this horrible pressure upon you; you are being tortured to
death!"

"Hush, my child. What I suffer is but the just and natural consequence
of what I did. Be patient, both for me and for yourself. By-and-by we
shall see that all is right."

Hard doctrine! and only to be learnt by long endurance. Lucia rebelled
against it, but she could not argue with her mother's pale face and
faintly spoken words to oppose her. She busied herself softly in such
little offices as her anxiety suggested, and they spoke no more that
night of the subjects nearest to their hearts.

But when Mrs. Costello was alone, she began to think of Maurice. She
felt, even before she began to think, that something which had been a