-by there were hours when
they asked themselves whether all the commotion and turmoil of the last
few weeks had been anything but a dream.

Beyond the Cottage, too, life had returned to its usual even flow. One
household, it is true, was desolate; but that one had existed for so
short a time that the change in it had scarcely any effect on the
general current of daily affairs. Bella went away immediately after the
funeral. Mrs. Bellairs had begun to despair of rousing her from her
stupor of grief and horror, while she remained in the midst of all that
could remind her of her husband; and, therefore, carried her away almost
by force to the house of some relations near Toronto. When she came
back, it would be to return to her old place in her brother-in-law's
house, a pale, silent woman in widow's weeds, the very ghost of the gay
bride who had left it so lately.

By Mrs. Morton's absence Lucia was relieved from her most painful task;
for, although she now no longer felt herself the daughter of the
murderer, there was so much disingenuousness in her position as the
most loved and trusted friend of the woman who still regarded her father
as the criminal, as to make it in the highest degree irksome to be with
her. She now tried to occupy herself as much as possible at home; and
while she did so, the calm to which she had forced herself outwardly
began to sink into her heart, and she found, almost with surprise, that
former habits of thought, and old likes and dislikes, had survived her
mental earthquake, and still kept their places when the dust had
settled, and the _debris_ were cleared away. One old habit in particular
would have returned as strongly as ever, if circumstances had
allowed--it was that of consulting and depending on Maurice in a
thousand little daily affairs. Since the first two days of his absence
there had been until now so constant a rush and strain of events and
emotions, that she had not had time to miss him much; on the contrary,
indeed, she had had passing sensations of gladness that he was not near
at certain crises to pierce with his clear eyes and ready intuition,
quite through the veil of composure which she could keep impervious
enough to others. But now that the composure began to be more than a
mere veil, and that her whole powers were no longer on the full stretch
to maintain it; now, too, when everything outwardly went on the same as
it had done three months ago, before Mr. Percy came to Cac