When Lucina got home that noon her mother noticed a change in her. “You look better than you have done for weeks,” said she.
“I enjoyed my ride,” Lucina said, with a smile and a blush which her mother could not fathom. The girl ate a dinner which gladdened her father's heart; afterwards she went up to her chamber, and presently came down with her hat on and her silk work-bag on her arm.
“I am going to take one of my chair-covers over to Aunt Camilla's,” said she.
“Well, walk slowly,” said her mother, trying to conceal her delight lest it betray her past anxiety. Lucina had not touched her embroidery for weeks, nor stepped out-of-doors of her own accord.
When she was gone her father and mother looked at each other. “She's better,” Eben said, with a catch in his voice.
“I haven't seen her so bright for weeks,” replied Abigail. She had a puzzled look in spite of her satisfaction. That night she ascertained through wariest soundings that Lucina had not met Jerome when riding in the morning. She had suspected something, though she scarcely knew what. Lucina's secrecy lately had deceived even her mother. She had begun to think that the girl had not been as much in earnest in her love affair as she had thought, and was drooping from some other cause.
When Lucina revealed with innocent readiness that she had met Colonel Lamson that morning and talked with him, and with no one else, Abigail could make nothing of it.
However, Lucina from that day on improved. She took up her little tasks; she seemed quite as formerly, only, possibly, somewhat older and more staid.
The Squire thought that her recovery was due to a certain bitter medicine which Doctor Prescott had given her, and often extolled it to his wife. “It is singular that medicine should work like a flash of lightning after she had been taking it for weeks with no effect,” thought Abigail, but she said nothing.
One afternoon, not long after her talk with Colonel Lamson, Lucina met Jerome face to face in the road, and stopped and held out her hand to him. “How do you do?” she said, paling and blushing, and yet with a sweet confidence which was new in her manner.