Then she did say, "You know that Maurice left us yesterday evening?
I miss him dreadfully; but I dare say he thinks much more of whether other people miss him." She went, and they were alone again.

So alone, as they had never been while Maurice was in Paris, when he might come in at any moment and bring a cheerful breath from the outer world into their narrow and feminine life,--as he would never come again! 'Oh,' Lucia thought, 'why could not he be our friend always--just our own Maurice as he used to be--and not have these miserable fancies?
We might have been so happy!' Towards night Mrs.Costello had greatly revived.

She was able to sit up a little, and to talk much as usual.

She did not allude at all to her last conversation with her daughter, and Lucia herself dared not renew so exciting a subject.

But all anger seemed to have entirely passed away from between them.