It was no grief to the widowed mother when she found that the bent of the young Lucy's mind was sincerely and enthusiastically directed towards a religious life. Although the attainder had been reversed, and her son had been restored to the Marquisate of Powis, it was not till some years afterwards that she had ventured to return to England; even then she lived in retirement and privacy. The widow of so zealous an adherent to King James could not be regarded without suspicion; her means were scanty; her elder daughters had not then made the advantageous alliances which they afterwards formed; and joyfully did she hail the vocation which she hoped would secure, to one of her children at least, a peaceful and tranquil existence, secure from any farther vicissitudes of fortune. But to one person the decision of the Lady Lucy Herbert was a matter of deep and unmixed sorrow. Her younger sister, the Lady Winifred, loved her with all the devotion of a fresh and unpractised heart. They had been early separated from the rest of their family. At the period of their father's death, when their childish hearts had for the first time been made acquainted with grief, they had been thrown entirely on each other for support and consolation. Though many years had now elapsed, the moment was still fresh in their memories, when their mother, in her mourning habit, with pale cheek and streaming eyes, delivered them over to the care of the friend who was to convey them to Bruges. The sad countenances and black garments of their sisters, and of the few domestics who still remained of their former establishment, coupled with the vague, ill-defined feeling, half resembling fear, half shame, which children experience when they witness grief more intense than their young minds can comprehend, had left a deep impression upon both the youthful pensioners. When first they found themselves in the convent, with none but strangers around them, the timid Winifred clung instinctively to her sister; while Lady Lucy, forced, as it were, to become the prop and stay of one younger and weaker than herself, acquired at an early age the habit of seeking strength and support from above. Loving and admiring her sister as did the Lady Winifred, it may excite wonder that she did not imbibe her strict religious notions; that she also should not have looked forward with joy to the idea of devoting herself to pious seclusion, and thus, at the same time, preserving the society of the being she most loved on earth. But it was not so. On the contrary, she felt her sister's vows as a barrier of separation between them.