There was yet another person on whom Maurice's coming had made a most lively impression. Claudine, as soon after her first sight of him as she could get hold of Lucia, had a dozen questions to ask. "Was he Mademoiselle's brother? Her cousin then? Only a friend? What a charming young man! How tall he was! and what magnifiques yeux bruns! Now, surely, Mademoiselle would not be so triste? She would go out a little? and everybody would remark them, Mademoiselle being so graceful, and monsieur so very tall."
Lucia told her mother, laughing, that she and Maurice were going to walk up the Champs Elysées next day, with placards, saying that they were two North Americans newly caught; and when Maurice came next morning, she repeated Claudine's comments to him with a perfect enjoyment of the good little woman's admiration for "ce beau Monsieur Canadien."
CHAPTER XII.
After that day, Paris became quite a different place to Lucia. Maurice was with them most of every day, and every day they saw something new, or made some little country excursion. The weather, though still rather cold, was fine and bright; winter had fairly given place to spring, and all externally was so gay, sunny and hopeful, that it was quite impossible to give way either to sad recollections of the past, or to melancholy thoughts of the future.
Mrs. Costello's health seemed steadily, though slowly improving; she had now no anxiety, except that one shadowy doubt of Lucia's decision with regard to Maurice, and that she was glad to leave for the present in uncertainty. She felt no hesitation in letting the two young people go where they would together; they had always been like brother and sister, and, at the worst, they would still be that.
When this pleasant life had lasted about ten days, Maurice came in one morning and said,
"What do you say to a visitor to-day, Lucia?"
Lucia looked up eagerly with clasped hands,
"Who?" she cried. "Not your cousin?"