"I hope not. At any rate, you must not hate him now, for I have asked him to be your guardian, and he has consented."
Lucia shuddered at that word "guardian," and the thought implied in it, but she determined to say no more about her prejudice against Mr. Wynter.
"You know," Mrs. Costello said, "that it would be much more comfortable for me to know that you were left in the care of my own people than with any one else. It will be three years before you are of age. To suppose that you may need a guardian, therefore, is neither improbable nor alarming; and my reason for proposing to settle in France is, that you may be within a short distance of him."
Lucia could only assent.
"I shall try," her mother continued, "to persuade him to pay us a visit there, and to bring his wife, who is a good woman, and I am sure would be kind to my child. I long very much, Lucia, sometimes, to know that, though I can never see the dear old home again, you may do so."
"Have they any children?" Lucia asked, her thoughts dwelling on the Wynters.
"They have lost several, George told me. There are three living, and the eldest, I think, is about your age."
They had talked themselves quite calm now. The idea of her own death had only troubled Mrs. Costello with regard to Lucia; and now that she was in some measure prepared for it, it seemed even less terrible than before. Lucia, for her part, had put by all consideration of the subject for the present; to think of it without agonies of distress was impossible, and at present to agitate herself would be to agitate her mother—a thing at any cost of after-suffering to be avoided.