Horrible or not, she put it aside and went back to the letters. In the earlier ones there were many allusions which seemed almost to belong to a former existence, so utterly had her life changed since they were written. The bright days of last summer, before the first cloud came over her fortunes, seemed to return almost too vividly to her memory; she would have bargained away a year of her life to be able to regain the simple happiness of that time. It could never be done; she had suffered, and had done some good and much evil; the past was ended and put away for ever; she could not, for all she might give, again set herself
"To the same key
Of the remembered harmony."
She closed the last letter of the little pile and put them carefully away. Already they seemed to her one of her most valuable possessions.
Mrs. Costello had finished writing to her cousin. She was busy with Murray and a map of France; and when Lucia came back she called her.
"Come here, I have half decided."
"Yes, mamma. Where is it?"
"Of course, I cannot be sure. I must make some inquiries; but I think this will do—Bourg-Cailloux."
Lucia looked where her mother's finger pointed on the map.
"Is it a seaport?" she asked.
"Yes, with steamers sailing direct to England."