herself. "In
summer we shall be able to go into the country and find something much
cheaper."

So they continued their search, and at last found just what they wanted;
though to do so, they had to mount so many stairs that Lucia was afraid
her mother would be exhausted.

"I do not think this will do, mamma," she said. "I should never dare to
ask you to go out, because when you came in tired, you would have all
this fatigue."

But the rooms were comfortable and airy, and the difficulties of living
"au cinquieme" were considered on the whole to be surmountable; so the
affair was settled. Then came the minor considerations of a new
housekeeping, and Margery was heartily regretted; though what the good
woman would have been able to do where she could neither understand nor
make herself understood, would not have been easy to say. Even Mrs.
Costello, who, in her youth, had had considerable practice in speaking
French, found herself now and then at a loss; and as for Lucia, having
only a sort of school-girl knowledge of the language, she instantly
found her comprehension swept away in the flood of words poured upon her
by every person she ventured to speak to. "Never mind, I shall soon
learn," she said in the most valiant manner; but, alas! for the present,
she was almost helpless, and Mrs. Costello had to arrange, bargain, and
interpret for both.

They wound up their day's business by a little shopping, which, like
everything else, was new to Lucia. The splendid shops, lighted up in
the early dusk of the winter afternoon, were as different as anything
could be from the stores at Cacouna. A sudden desire to be possessed of
a purse full of money, which she might empty in these enchanted palaces,
was the immediate and natural effect of the occasion on the mind of such
an unsophisticated visitor. She became, indeed, so completely lost in
admiration, that her mother made her small purchases without being able
to obtain anything but the vaguest and most unsatisfactory opinions on
such trifling affairs.

Mr. Wynter derived considerable amusement from watching his young cousin
and future ward. He told his wife afterwards that he had begun the day's
work entirely from a sense of duty towards poor Mary; but that for once
he had found that kind of thing almost as amusing as women seemed to do.
The young girl with her half-Indian nature, and wholly Canadian--ultra
Canadian--bringing up, was so bright, simple, and naive, that she w