That evening Lucy tripped home with a light heart. When she retired
to rest, she built many an air-castle of future happiness.

The next morning, as the home-servants of Modbury's farm were going
to their daily toil, they found a crowd round Damerel's cottage door.
On inquiring into the cause, they were told that Luke had in a fit of
despair enlisted as a soldier, and that the news had wrought so
violently on the feelings of his mother, that it was thought she
could never recover!

The scene inside the cottage was painfully distressing. The old dame
was lying on a bed with her clothes still about her, showing that she
had not gone to rest the whole night. The village doctor was by her
side, having just bled her, whilst everything strewed about the room
indicated that the always revolting operation had but recently been
performed. The neighbours, as they crowded round the door, denounced
Luke's conduct as rash and heartless. In the midst of their
denunciations they were joined by another, to whom every word they
uttered was as a death-wound. It was Lucy.

Whoever has had the misfortune of often seeing women placed in sudden
difficulties, or overtaken by an unforeseen misfortune, must have
remarked that they occasionally act with unexpected firmness. They
frequently show a calmness of manner and a directness of purpose,
forming quite an exception to their every-day demeanour. It is after
the danger is over, or the first crisis past, that they break down,
as it were, and show themselves to belong to the weaker sex. Thus it
was with Lucy. When she entered the cottage, she had a full knowledge
of the death-blow which had been inflicted on her hopes of future
happiness. Still, she seemed calm and collected. When she took the