To describe Lucy’s feelings while she read this simply-worded epistle would be impossible.  All the love and tenderness which she had felt for Luke during the time she had known him, seemed to be concentrated within her at that moment.  At first she mourned the step he had taken as hopeless and irreparable; but, casting her eyes upon the lace-work she had the day before been doing, a sudden thought seized her.  By means of that, something might be eventually accomplished.  With these thoughts she quietly folded the letter, placed it on the table beside the bed, and resumed the lace-work, scarcely speaking a word.

Mrs Damerel mistook this action for indifference, and in her sincere desire for the girl’s welfare, urged—­not for the first time—­plans and sentiments which, though well meant, were utterly revolting to Lucy.  Luke had, she argued, no doubt behaved very ill, by rashly and without explanation tearing himself not only from her, but from every person to whom he was dear.  On the other hand, Farmer Modbury’s advances were very flattering, and she could hardly blame a girl who had been so cruelly treated, even by her own son, were she to accept the good-fortune that lay before her.

Still Lucy went on practising her lace-work, her heart beating, and her averted eyes swimming with tears.  At length she exclaimed:  ’Dame, you will break my heart if you ever talk in this way again.  To you I look for comfort and strength in loving Luke, which I shall never cease to do.  I, whether innocent or not, am the cause of depriving you of the comfort of his company, and I am determined to restore him to us both.  You may think it impossible, but it is not.  I have thought, and thought, and reckoned up everything, and am quite sure it can be done.’

‘I cannot make out what you mean,’ said Mrs Damerel.

’Why, that I intend, as soon as I am able to do it well enough, to take work from the town, to leave Farmer Modbury, and come and be with you.  We can live on very little, and every spare shilling we will put into the savings-bank, until it amounts to a sufficient sum to buy Luke off.’  She then industriously resumed her work.  It was some time before Mrs Damerel could comprehend the full intent and meaning of the sacrifice the girl proposed.  At first she thought it was a mere flighty resolution, that would not hold long; and even when she was made to understand that it was unshaken, she looked at the achievement as impossible; for at that time the prices for lace-work were falling, in consequence of the recent introduction of machinery.

About a week after this all her doubts vanished, for, on Michaelmas-day, when Lucy’s term of service with Farmer Modbury expired, sure enough she brought her box, and declared she had come to stay with her adopted mother.  She had previously been to a master-manufacturer in Honiton with a specimen of her lace, and it was so well approved, that she obtained a commission for a large quantity on the spot.  By this time the old dame had completely recovered from her illness, and was able to move about, so as to attend to the little domestic concerns of the cottage; Lucy could therefore give her undivided attention to her work.