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.

Her proceedings were by no means agreeable to her father or to
Modbury. The former wrote enjoining her by no means to leave the
farmer's house; but the letter came too late, for she had already
taken her departure. Modbury, however, in replying to an epistle in
which Fennel had given him free consent to marry his daughter,
expressed a thorough conviction of the firmness of the girl's
purpose, and that at present it was impossible to shake it. Though
she had left his roof he should continue to watch over her, and
hoped, by persevering kindness and attention, eventually to win her
a