n we
take him back, we should not seem to be ashamed of him?"
Lucia hid her face against her mother's dress.
"Oh! mamma, is it wrong to talk so? He is my father after all, and it
seems so dreadful; but indeed I shall try to behave like a daughter to
him."
Yet even as she spoke, an irrepressible shudder crept over her with the
sudden recollection of the only time she had seen the prodigal.
"My poor child!" and her mother's arm was passed tenderly round her, "it
is just that I wish to spare you."
Lucia looked up steadily.
"But ought I to be spared, mother? It seems to me that my duty is just
as plain as yours. Do not ask me to go away."
"I am half distracted, darling, between trying to think for you and for
him. And perhaps all my thought for him may be useless."
"At least, think only of him for the present."
"If he should die before the trial?"
"If he could only be cleared! Perhaps it would save him yet."
"Yes. It seems to be imprisonment which is killing him; but nothing less
than a miracle could make any change now, and there are no miracles in
our days."
"Ah! mamma, has not a miracle been worked already?"
"How?"
"Only a little while ago remember how we thought and spoke of him--and
now--"
"You are right, my child; but the agencies which have worked this
miracle are very earthly ones--pain and sorrow, and false accusation."
"Mamma, I think this is better than the old life of terror, and perhaps
hatred."
"Far better, far better. Yes, through dark and painful means a better
end is coming. But it is hard to think that you must live through all
your life under the shadow of a supposed crime. For us who have sinned
life is nearly over, our punishment was just, and it will soon be ended.
It is you, my child, whom I have so tried to shield, who must bear the
heaviest penalty."
"No, mother, do not think so. When all this is over we shall go away,
you and I, and be very happy together again; and the happiness will be
more equally balanced than it was in the old days when you had so much
care and I none. And then, if ever I am left alone, I shall go and be a
Sister of Charity or one of Miss Nightingale's nurses, and be too busy
and useful to be unhappy."
Mrs. Costello stooped down and kissed her child's forehead.
"I thought you might have had a brighter fate than that, darling.
Perhaps I thought more of seeing you a happy woman than a good one; but
if you are never to have the home
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