een rather unsatisfactory; at all events
it had had no visible results, and she liked results. She wanted to go
home and see how Maurice reigned at Hunsdon, and tell her particular
friends about the beautiful girl she hoped some day to have the pleasure
of patronizing.

Mrs. Costello had regained nearly her usual health. One day, shortly
after the Dightons left, she asked Lucia to bring her desk, saying that
she must write to Mr. Wynter, and that it was time they should make some
different arrangement, since, as they had long ago agreed, Paris was too
expensive for them to stay there all the year.

Lucia remembered what Maurice had said to her about her mother returning
to England, but the consciousness of what had really been in his mind at
the moment stopped her just as she was about to speak. She brought the
desk, and said only,

"Have you thought of any place, mamma?"

"I have thought of two or three, but none please me," Mrs. Costello
answered. "We want a cheap place--one within easy reach of England, and
one not too much visited by tourists. It is not very easy to find a
place with all the requisites."

"No, indeed. But you are not able to travel yet."

"Yes I am. Indeed, it is necessary we should go soon, if not
immediately."

Lucia sighed. She would be sorry to leave Paris. Meantime her mother had
opened the desk, but before beginning to write she took out a small
packet of letters, and handed them to Lucia. "I will give these to you,"
she said, "for you have the greatest concern with them, though they were
not meant for your eyes."

Lucia looked at the packet and recognized Maurice's hand.

"Ought I to read them, then?" she said.

"Certainly. Nay, I desire that you will read them carefully. Yes,
Lucia," she went on in a softer tone, "I wish you to know all that has
been hidden from you. Take those notes and keep them. When you are an
old woman you may be glad to remember that they were ever written."

Lucia could not answer. She carried the packet away to her own chair,
and sitting down, opened it and began to read. It was only Maurice's
notes, written to Mrs. Costello from England, and they were many of them
very hasty, impetuous, and not particularly well-expressed missives. But
if they had been eloquence itself, they could not have stirred the
reader's heart as they did. It was the simple bare fact of a great
love--so much greater than she could ever have deserved, and yet passed
by, disregarde