There is something like a shadow of real trouble upon her face, and I advise you, Bella, if you have any regard for her, to talk no nonsense to her about Mr.Percy." Bella looked positively grave for a moment.

She was but just married, and was very happy herself--it was natural, perhaps, that she should refuse in her own heart to acknowledge the necessity for Lucia's "real trouble" having other cause than the departure of Percy; but, like her sister, she was very warm-hearted, though her flightiness often concealed it, and she had a small fund of sentiment and romance safely hidden away somewhere, which helped to make her sympathetic.
Mrs.Bellairs was pleased with her sister's gravity.

She did not choose to confess that she also believed Lucia had to some degree grieved over her absent admirer, for she knew nothing of his proposal or what had followed it, and had a peculiar dislike to hearing Lucia's name linked with his in Bella's careless talk.

But she had seen clearly enough that if he was regretted, that regret was but part of Lucia's trouble, and she wanted to say nothing of her own suspicions, and yet to save Lucia from the attack Bella was sure to make upon her, if she did not perceive (as she was not likely to do unaided) that her jests were specially ill-timed.

So she went on talking.
"They are to shut up the Cottage, and I have promised to look into it occasionally and see that it is kept in repair, but I think their greatest difficulty is about poor Mr.Leigh, whom Maurice left in their care.