Mrs.Costello had left her chair and her work on the verandah and gone indoors.

Lucia picked up a fallen knitting-needle, and carried it into the parlour; but as she passed the doorway she saw her mother sitting in her own low chair, her head fallen forward, and her whole attitude strange and unnatural.
Lucia uttered a cry of terror; she sprang to Mrs.Costello's side, and tried to raise her, but the inanimate figure slipped from her arms.

She called Margery, and together they lifted her mother and laid her on her bed.

The first inexpressible fear soon passed away--it was but a deep fainting fit, which began to yield to their remedies.

As soon as this became evident, Lucia had time to wonder what could have caused so sudden an illness.