om the moment of their landing.
Mr. Wynter decided without any hesitation that they should remain at
Havre, at least until the next day. In the evening, therefore, they were
sitting quietly together when the important question of a future
residence for the mother and daughter came to be discussed.

"I should like Lucia to see something of Paris," Mrs. Costello said,
"and to do that we should be obliged to stay a considerable time; for,
as you perceive, I am not strong enough to do much sight-seeing at
present."

"I see," Mr. Wynter answered, nodding gravely. "We might get you a nice
little apartment there, and settle you for the winter; that would be
the best plan. I suppose you don't mind cold?"

"That depends entirely on the sort of cold. Yes; I think we should
settle in Paris for a time, and then move into the country. Only I have
a great fancy not to be more than a day's journey from England."

"In which I sympathize with you. It will be very much more satisfactory
to me to know that you are within a reasonable distance of us."

Lucia sat and listened very contentedly to the talk of the elder people.
To her, whose only experience of relationship, beyond her mother, was
painful and mortifying, there was something she had not anticipated of
novelty and comfort in this new state of affairs. Her cousin's tone of
kinsmanship and friendliness was so genuine and unforced that she and
her mother both accepted it naturally, and forgot for the moment that,
to a little-minded man, such friendliness might have been difficult and
perhaps impossible.

They decided to start for Paris next morning, Mr. Wynter saying that he
had arranged for a week's absence from England, and therefore would have
plenty of time to see them fixed in their new residence before he left.
Then the conversation glided to other subjects, and Lucia losing her
interest in it, began to wonder where Percy was--whether they were again
on the same continent--whether he would hear, through the Bellairs, of
their movements--whether he thought of her. And from that point she went
off in some indescribable maze of dreams, recollections, and wishes,
through which there came, as if from a distance, the sound of voices
talking about England--about Chester--about her mother's old home and
old friends--and about her young cousins, the Wynters, and a visit they
were to make to France when spring should have set in.

In the midst of all, the sound of a great clock s