Nay, the merry town had changed beyond all credence; it was hushed like a sick-room, and dolefully murmurous with forebodings of farewell and sorrow.
For all the very flower of Rouen's youth had promised to follow Tom Vanrevel on the long and arduous journey to Mexico, to march burning miles under the tropical sun, to face strange fevers and the guns of Santa Anna.
Few were the houses of the more pretentious sort that did not mourn, in prospect, the going of son, or brother, or close friend; mothers already wept not in secret, fathers talked with husky bravado; and everyone was very kind to those who were to go, speaking to them gently and bringing them little foolish presents.

Nor could the hearts of girls now longer mask as blocks of ice to the prospective conquistadores; Eugene Madrillon's young brother, Jean, after a two years' Beatrice-and-Benedict wooing of Trixie Chenoweth (that notable spitfire) announced his engagement upon the day after his enlistment, and recounted to all who would listen how his termagant fell upon his neck in tears when she heard the news.

"And now she cries about me all the time," finished the frank Jean blithely.
But there was little spirit for the old merriments: there were no more carpet-dances at the Bareauds', no masquerades at the Madrillons', no picnics in the woods nor excursions on the river; and no more did light feet bear light hearts through the "mazes of the intricate schottische, the subtle mazourka, or the stately quadrille," as Will Cummings remarked in the Journal.

Fanchon, Virginia, and five or six others, spent their afternoons mournfully, and yet proudly, sewing and cutting large pieces of colored silk, fashioning a great flag for their sweethearts and brothers to bear southward and plant where stood the palace of the Montezumas.
That was sad work for Fanchon, though it was not for her brother's sake that she wept, since, as everyone knew, Jefferson was already so full of malaria and quinine that the fevers of the South and Mexico must find him invulnerable, and even his mother believed he would only thrive and grow hearty on his soldiering.

But about Crailey, Fanchon had a presentiment more vivid than any born of the natural fears for his safety; it came to her again and again, reappearing in her dreams; she shivered and started often as she worked on the flag, then bent her fair head low over the gay silks, while the others glanced at her sympathetically.