Twenty-five years ago the people of
Devonshire, a little town among the
New England hills, had the reputation
of being rather quarrelsome. Sometimes about meek,
gentle Mrs. Tiverton, the minister’s wife, whose manner
of housekeeping, or style of dress, did not exactly
suit them; sometimes about the minister himself,
who vainly imagined that if he preached three
sermons a week, attended the Wednesday evening
prayer-meeting, the Thursday evening sewing society,
visited all the sick, and gave to every beggar
that called at his door, besides superintending the
Sunday-school, he was earning his salary of six hundred
per year.
8Sometimes, and that not rarely, the quarrel crept
into the choir, and then for two or three Sundays it
was all in vain that Mr. Tiverton read the psalm
and hymn, and cast troubled glances toward the
vacant seats of his refractory singers. There was
no one to respond, except poor Mr. Hodges, who
usually selected something in a minor key, and
pitched it so high that few could follow him; while
Mrs. Captain Simpson—whose daughter was the organist—rolled
her eyes at her next neighbor, or
fanned herself furiously in token of her disgust.
Latterly, however, there had arisen a new cause
for quarrel, before which everything else sank into
insignificance. Now, though the village of Devonshire
could boast but one public school-house,
said house being divided into two departments, the
upper and lower divisions, there were in the town
several district schools; and for the last few years a
committee of three had been annually appointed to
examine and decide upon the merits of the various
candidates for teaching, giving to each, if the decision
were favorable, a slip of paper certifying his
or her qualification to teach a common school. It
was strange that over such an office so fierce a feud
should have arisen; but when Mr. Tiverton, Squire
9Lamb, and Lawyer Whittemore, in the full conviction
that they were doing right, refused a certificate
of scholarship to a niece of Mrs. Judge Tisdale, and
awarded it to one whose earnings in a factory had
procured for her a thorough English education, the
villagers were roused as they had never been before—the
aristocracy abusing, and the democracy
upholding the dismayed trio, who at last quietly
resigned their office, and Devonshire was without a
school committee.
In this emergency something must be done, and
as the two belligerent parties could only unite on a
stranger, it seemed a matter of special providence
that only two months before the quarrel began,
young Dr. Holbrook, a native of Boston, had rented
the pleasant little office on the village common, formerly
occupied by old Dr. Carey, whose days of
practice were over. Besides being handsome, and
skillful, and quite as familiar with the poor as the
rich, the young doctor was descended from the aristocratic
line of Boston Holbrooks, facts which tended
to make him a favorite with both classes; and,
greatly to his surprise, he found himself unanimously
elected to the responsible office of sole Inspector
of Common Schools in Devonshire. It was
10in vain that he remonstrated, saying he knew nothing
whatever of the qualifications requisite for a
teacher; that he could not talk to girls unless they
happened to be sick; that he should make a miserable
failure, and be turned out of office in less
than a month. The people would not listen. Somebody
must examine the teachers, and that somebody
might as well be Dr. Holbrook as any one.
“Only be strict with ’em and draw the reins
tight; find out to your satisfaction whether a gal
knows her P’s and Q’s before you give her a stifficut:
we’ve had enough of your ignoramuses,” said
Colonel Lewis, the democratic potentate to whom
Dr. Holbrook was expressing his fears that he should
not give satisfaction. Then, as a bright idea suggested
itself to the old gentleman, he added: “I
tell you what, just cut one or two at first; that’ll
give you a name for being particular, which is just
the thing.”
Accordingly, with no definite idea as to what was
expected of him, except that he was to find out
“whether a gal knew her P’s and Q’s,” and was also
to “cut one or two of the first candidates,” Dr.
Holbrook accepted the situation, and then waited
rather nervously his initiation. He was never at his
11ease in the society of ladies, unless they stood
in need of his professional services, when he lost
sight of them at once, and thought only of their disease.
His patient once well, however, he became
nervously shy and embarrassed, retreating as soon
as possible from her presence to the shelter of his
friendly office, where, with his boots upon the table,
and his head thrown back in a most comfortable
position, he sat one April morning, in happy oblivion
of the bevy of girls who were ere long to invade his
sanctum.
“Something for you, sir. The lady will wait for
an answer,” said his office boy, passing to his master
a little note, and nodding toward the street.
Following the direction indicated, the doctor saw
near his door an old-fashioned one-horse wagon, such
as is still occasionally seen in New England among
the farmers who till the barren soil and rarely indulge
in anything new. On this occasion it was a
square-boxed dark-green wagon, drawn by a sorrel
horse, sometimes called by the genuine Yankee “yellow,”
and driven by a white-haired man, whose silvery
locks, falling around his wrinkled face, gave him a
pleasing, patriarchal appearance, which interested the
doctor far more than did the flutter of the blue ribbon
12beside him, even though the bonnet that ribbon
tied shaded the face of a young girl.
The note was from her, and, tearing it open, the
doctor read, in a pretty, girlish handwriting:
“Dr. Holbrook.”
Here it was plainly visible that a “D” had been
written as if she would have said “Dear.” Then,
evidently changing her mind, she had with her finger
blotted out the “D,” and made it into an oddly-shaped
“S,” so that it read:
“Dr. Holbrook—Sir: Will you be at leisure to
examine me on Monday afternoon, at three o’clock?
“Madeline A. Clyde.
“P. S.—For particular reasons I hope you can attend
to me as early as Monday.
M. A. C.”
Dr. Holbrook knew very little of girls and their
peculiarities, but he thought this note, with its P. S.,
decidedly girlish. Still he made no comment, either
verbal or mental, so flurried was he with the thought
that the evil he so much dreaded had come upon
him at last. Had it been left to his choice, he would
far rather have extracted every one of Madeline
Clyde’s teeth, than have set himself up before
13her as some horrid ogre, asking what she knew and
what she did not know. But the choice was not
his, and, turning at last to the boy, he said shortly,
“Tell her to come.”
Most men would have sought for a glimpse of the
face under the bonnet tied with blue, but Dr. Holbrook
did not care a picayune whether it were ugly or fair,
though it did strike him that the voice was singularly
sweet, which, after the boy had delivered the message,
said to the old man, “Oh, I am so glad; now, grandpa,
we’ll go home. I know you must be tired.”
Very slowly Sorrel trotted down the street, the
blue ribbons fluttering in the wind, and one little ungloved
hand carefully adjusting about the old man’s
shoulders the ancient camlet cloak which had done
duty for many a year, and was needed on this chill
April day. The doctor saw all this, and the impression
left upon his mind was, that Candidate No. 1 was
probably a nice kind of a girl, and very good to her
grandfather. But what should he ask her, and how
demean himself towards her, and would it be well to
“cut her,” as Colonel Lewis had advised him to do to
one or two of the first? Monday afternoon was frightfully
near, he thought, as this was only Saturday; and
then, feeling that he must be prepared, he brought out
14from the trunk, where, since his arrival in Devonshire,
they had been quietly lying, books enough to have
frightened an elder person than poor little Madeline
Clyde, riding slowly home, and wishing so much that
she’d had a glimpse of Dr. Holbrook, so as to know
what he was like, and hoping he would give her a
chance to repeat some of the many pages of Geography
and History which she knew by heart. How she
would have trembled could she have seen the formidable
volumes heaped upon the doctor’s table and
waiting for her. There were French and Latin
grammars, Hamilton’s Metaphysics, Olmstead’s Philosophy,
Day’s Algebra, Butler’s Analogy, and many
other books, into which poor Madeline had never so
much as looked. Arranging them in a row, and half
wishing himself back again in the days when he had
studied them, the doctor went out to visit his patients,
of which there were so many that Madeline Clyde
entirely escaped his mind, nor did she trouble him
again until the dreaded Monday came, and the hands
of his watch pointed to two.
“One hour more,” he said to himself, just as the
roll of wheels and a cloud of dust announced the
arrival of some one.
“Can it be Sorrel and the square wagon?” Dr.
15Holbrook thought. But far different from Grandfather
Clyde’s turnout was the stylish carriage and the
spirited bays which the colored coachman stopped in
front of the white cottage in the same yard with the
office, the house where Dr. Holbrook boarded, and
where, if he married while in Devonshire, he would
most likely bring his wife.
“Guy Remington, the very chap of all others
whom I’d rather see, and, as I live, there’s Agnes
with Jessie. Who knew she was in these parts?” was
the doctor’s mental exclamation, as, running his fingers
through his hair and making a feint of pulling up
the corners of his rather limp collar, he hurried out to
the carriage, from which a dashing-looking lady of
thirty, or thereabouts, was alighting.
“Why, Agnes—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Remington—when
did you come?” he asked, offering his hand
to the lady, who, coquettishly shaking back from her
pretty, dollish face a profusion of light brown curls,
gave him the tips of her lavender kids, while she told
him she had come to Aikenside the Saturday before;
and hearing from Guy that the lady with whom he
boarded was an old friend of hers, she had driven
over to call, and brought Jessie with her. “Here,
Jessie, speak to the doctor. He was poor dear papa’s
16friend,” and something which was intended as a sigh
of regret for “poor, dear papa,” escaped Agnes Remington’s
lips as she pushed a little curly-haired girl
toward Dr. Holbrook.
Mrs. Conner, the lady of the house, had seen them
by this time, and came running down the walk to
meet her distinguished visitor, wondering a little to
what she was indebted for this call from one who,
since her marriage with the aristocratic Dr. Remington,
had somewhat ignored her former acquaintances.
Agnes was delighted to see her, and as Guy
declined entering the cottage just then, the two
friends disappeared within the door, while the doctor
and Guy repaired to the office, the latter sitting down
in the chair intended for Madeline Clyde. This
reminded the doctor of his perplexity, and also
brought the comforting thought that Guy, who had
never failed him yet, could surely offer some suggestions.
But he would not speak of it just now, he had
other matters to talk about; and so, jamming his pen-knife
into a pine table covered with similar jams, he
said, “Agnes, it seems, has come to Aikenside, notwithstanding
she declared she never would, when she
found that the whole of the Remington property
belonged to your mother, and not your father.”
17“Oh, yes. She recovered from her pique as soon
as I settled a handsome little income on Jessie, and,
in fact, on her too, until she is foolish enough to
marry again, when it will cease, of course, as I do not
feel it my duty to support any man’s wife, unless it be
my own,” was Guy Remington’s reply; whereupon
the pen-knife went again into the table, and this time
with so much force that the point was broken off;
but the doctor did not mind it, and with the jagged
end continued to make jagged marks, while he said:
“She’ll hardly marry again, though she may. She’s
young—not over twenty-six—”
“Thirty, if the family Bible does not lie,” said
Guy; “but she’d never forgive me if she knew I told
you that. So let it pass that she’s twenty-eight. She
certainly is not more than two years your senior, a
mere nothing, if you wish to make her Mrs. Holbrook;”
and Guy’s dark eyes scanned curiously the
doctor’s face, as if seeking there for the secret of his
proud young step-mother’s anxiety to visit plain Mrs.
Conner the moment she heard that Dr. Holbrook was
her boarder. But the doctor only laughed merrily at
the idea of his being father to Guy, who was his
college chum and long-tried friend.
Agnes Remington, who was reclining languidly in
18Mrs. Conner’s easy-chair, and overwhelming her former
friend with descriptions of the gay parties she
had attended in Boston, and the fine sights she saw in
Europe, whither her gray-haired husband had taken
her for a wedding tour—would not have felt particularly
flattered, could she have seen that smile, or
heard how easily, from talking of her, Dr. Holbrook
turned to Madeline Clyde, whom he expected every
moment. There was a merry laugh on Guy’s part, as
he listened to the doctor’s story; and when it was
finished, he said: “Why, I see nothing so very distasteful
in examining a pretty girl, and puzzling her,
to see her blush. I half wish I were in your place.
I should enjoy the novelty of the thing.”
“Oh, take it, then; take my place, Guy,” the
doctor exclaimed, eagerly. “She does not know me
from Adam. She never saw me in her life. Here are
books, all you will need. You went to a district
school a whole week that summer when you were
staying in the country, with your grandmother.
You surely have some idea what they do there, while I
have not the slightest. Will you, Guy?” he persisted
more earnestly, as he heard wheels in the street, and
was sure old Sorrel had come again.
Guy Remington liked anything savoring of a
19frolic, but in his mind there were certain conscientious
scruples touching the justice of the thing, and so
at first he demurred; while the doctor still insisted,
until at last he laughingly consented to commence the
examination, provided the doctor would sit by, and
occasionally come to his aid.
“You must write the certificate, of course,” he
said, “testifying that she is qualified to teach.”
“Yes, certainly, Guy, if she is; but maybe she
won’t be, and my orders are, to be strict—very strict
at first, and cut one or two. You have no idea what a
row the town is in.”
“How did the girl look?” Guy asked, and the
doctor replied: “Saw nothing but her bonnet and a
blue ribbon. Came in a queer old go-giggle of a
wagon, such as your country farmers drive. There
was an old man with her in a camlet cloak. Guess
she won’t be likely to impress either of us, particularly
as I am bullet-proof, and you have been engaged for
years. By the way, when do you cross the sea again
for the fair Lucy? Rumor says, this summer.”
“Rumor is wrong, as usual, then,” was Guy’s
reply, a soft light stealing into his handsome eyes.
Then, after a moment, he added: “Miss Atherstone’s
health is far too delicate for her to incur the risk of a
20climate like ours. If she were here I should be glad,
for it is terribly lonely up at Aikenside, and I must
stay there, you know. It would be a shame to let the
place run down.”
“And do you really think a wife would make it
pleasanter?” Dr. Holbrook asked, the tone of his
voice indicating a little doubt as to a man’s being
happier for having a helpmate to share his joys and
sorrows.
But no such doubts dwelt in the mind of Guy
Remington. Eminently fitted for domestic happiness,
he looked forward anxiously to the time when Lucy
Atherstone, the fair English girl to whom he had become
engaged when he visited Europe, four years ago,
should be strong enough to bear transplanting to
American soil. Twice since his engagement he had
visited her, finding her always loving and sweet, but
never quite ready to come with him to his home in
America. He must wait a little longer; and he was
waiting, satisfied that the girl was worth the sacrifice,
as indeed she was, for a fairer, sweeter flower never
bloomed than Lucy Atherstone, his affianced bride.
Guy loved to think of her, and as the doctor’s remarks
brought her to his mind, he went off into a reverie
concerning her, becoming so lost in thought, that until
21the doctor’s hand was laid upon his shoulder, by way
of rousing him, he did not see that what his friend had
designated as a go-giggle was stopping in front of the
office, and that from it a young lady was alighting.
Naturally polite, Guy’s first impulse was to go to
her assistance, but she did not need it, as was proven
by the light spring with which she reached the ground.
The white-haired man was with her again, but he evidently
did not intend to stop, and a close observer
might have detected a shade of sadness and anxiety
upon his face as Madeline called cheerily out to him,
“Good-bye, grandpa. Don’t fear for me, and I hope
you will have good luck;” then, as he drove away,
she ran a step after him and said, “Don’t look so sorry,
please, for if Mr. Remington won’t let you have the
money, there’s my pony, Beauty. I am willing to give
him up.”
“Never, Maddy. It’s all the little fortin’ you’ve
got. I’ll let the old place go first;” and chirruping
to Sorrel, the old man drove on, while Madeline
walked, with a beating heart, to the office door where
she knocked timidly.
Glancing involuntarily at each other, the young
men exchanged meaning smiles, while the doctor
whispered softly, “Verdant—that’s sure.”
22As Guy sat nearest the door, it was he who opened
it, while Madeline came in, her soft brown eyes glistening
with something like a tear, and her cheeks
burning with excitement as she took the chair indicated
by Guy Remington, who unconsciously found
himself master of ceremonies, and whom she naturally
mistook for Dr. Holbrook, whom she had never seen.
CHAPTER II. MADELINE CLYDE.
23
Maddy, her grandfather and grandmother
called her, and there was a world of unutterable
tenderness in the voices of the
old couple when they spoke that name, while their
dim eyes lighted up with pride and joy whenever
they rested upon the young girl who made the sunlight
of their home. She was the child of their only
daughter, and had lived with them since her mother’s
death, for her father was a sea captain, who never
returned from his last voyage to China, made two
months before she was born.
For forty years the aged couple had lived in the
old red farm-house, tilling the barren soil of the
rocky homestead, and, save on the sad night when
they heard that Richard Clyde was lost at sea, and
the far sadder morning when their daughter died,
they had been tolerably free from sorrow; and, truly
thankful for the blessings so long vouchsafed them,
they had retired each night in peace with God and
24man, and risen each morning to pray. But a change
was coming over them. In an evil hour Grandpa
Markham had signed a note for a neighbor and
friend, who failed to pay, and so it all fell upon
Mr. Markham, who, to meet the demand, had been
compelled to mortgage his homestead; the recreant
neighbor still insisting that long before the mortgage
was due he should be able himself to meet it.
This, however, he had not done, and, after twice
begging off a foreclosure, poor old Grandfather Markham
found himself at the mercy of a grasping, remorseless
man, into whose hands the mortgage had
passed. It was vain to hope for mercy from a man
like Silas Slocum. The money must either be forthcoming,
or the red farm-house be sold, with its few
acres of land; and as among his neighbors there
was not one who had the money to spare, even
if they had been willing to do so, he must look
for it among strangers.
“If I could only help,” Madeline said one evening
when they sat talking over their troubles; “but
there’s nothing I can do, unless I apply for our school
this summer. Mr. Green is the committee-man; he
likes us, and I don’t believe but what he’ll let me have
it. I mean to go and see;” and, before the old
25people had recovered from their astonishment, Madeline
had caught her bonnet and shawl and was flying
down the road.
Madeline was a favorite with all, especially with
Mr. Green, and as the school would be small that
summer, the plan struck him favorably. Her age,
however, was an objection, and he must take time to
inquire what others thought of a child like her becoming
a school-mistress. The people thought well of it,
and before the close of the next day it was generally
known through Honedale, as the southern part of
Devonshire was called, that pretty little Maddy Clyde
had been engaged as teacher, and was to receive three
dollars a week, with the understanding that she must
board herself. It did not take Madeline long to calculate
that twelve times three dollars were thirty-six
dollars, more than a tenth of what her grandfather
must borrow. It seemed like a little fortune, and
blithe as a singing bird she flitted about the house,
now stopping a moment to fondle her pet kitten, while
she whispered the good news in its very appreciative
ear, and then stroking her grandfather’s silvery hair,
as she said:
“You can tell them that you are sure of paying
thirty-six dollars in the fall, and if I do well, maybe
26they’ll hire me longer. I mean to try my very best.
I wonder if ever anybody before me taught a school
when they were only fourteen and a half. Do I look
as young as that?” and for an instant the bright,
childish face scanned itself eagerly in the old-fashioned
mirror, with the figure of an eagle on the
top.
She did look very young, and yet there was something
womanly too in the expression of the face, something
which said that life’s realities were already beginning
to be understood by her.
“If my hair were not short I should do better.
What a pity I cut it the last time. It would have
been so long and splendid now,” she continued, giving
a kind of contemptuous pull at the thick, beautiful
brown hair, on which there was in certain lights a
reddish tinge, which added to its richness and
beauty.
“Never mind the hair, Maddy,” the old man said,
gazing fondly at her with a half sigh as he remembered
another brown head, pillowed now beneath the
graveyard-turf. “Maybe you won’t pass muster, and
then the hair will make no differ. There’s a new
committee-man, that Dr. Holbrook, from Boston, and
new ones are apt to be mighty strict, and especially
27young ones like him. They say he is mighty larned,
and can speak in furrin tongues.”
Instantly Maddy’s face flushed with nervous dread,
as she thought, “What if I should fail?” fancying
that to do so would be an eternal disgrace. But she
should not fail. She was called by everybody the
very best scholar in the Honedale school, the one whom
the teachers always put forward when desirous of
showing off, the one whom Mr. Tiverton, and Squire
Lamb, and Lawyer Whittemore always noticed and
praised so much. Of course she should not fail, though
she did dread Dr. Holbrook, wondering much what
he would ask her first, and hoping it would be something
in arithmetic, provided he did not stumble
upon decimals, where she was apt to get bewildered.
She had no fears of grammar. She could pick out the
most obscure sentence and dissect a double relative
with perfect ease; then, as to geography, she could
repeat whole pages of that; while in the spelling-book,
the foundation of a thorough education, as she had
been taught, she had no superiors, and but few equals.
Still, she would be very glad when it was over, and
she appointed Monday, both because it was close at
hand, and because that was the day her grandfather
had set in which to ride to Aikenside, in an adjoining
28town, and ask its young master for the loan of three
hundred dollars.
He could hardly tell why he had thought of
applying to Guy Remington for help, unless it were
that he once had saved the life of Guy’s father, who,
as long as he lived, had evinced a great regard for his
benefactor, frequently asserting that he meant to do
something for him. But the something was never
done, the father was dead, and in his strait the old
man turned to the son, whom he knew to be very
rich, and who, he had been told, was exceedingly
generous.
“How I wish I could go with you clear up to
Aikenside! They say it’s so beautiful,” Madeline had
said, as on Saturday evening they sat discussing the
expected events of the following Monday. “Mrs.
Noah, the housekeeper, had Sarah Jones there once, to
sew, and she told me all about it. There are graveled
walks, and nice green lawns, and big, tall trees, and
flowers—oh! so many!—and marble fountains, with
gold fishes in the basin; and statues, big as folks, all
over the yard, with two brass lions on the gate-posts.
But the house is finest of all. There’s a drawing-room
bigger than a ball-room, with carpets that let your
feet sink in so far; pictures and mirrors clear to the
29floor—think of that, grandpa! a looking-glass so tall
that one can see the very bottom of her dress and
know just how it hangs. Oh, I do so wish I could
have a peep at it! There are two in one room, and
the windows are like doors, with lace curtains; but
what is queerest of all, the chairs and sofas are
covered with real silk, just like that funny gored
gown of grandma’s up in the oak chest. Dear me! I
wonder if I’ll ever live in such a place as Aikenside?”
“No, no, Maddy, no. Be satisfied with the lot
where God has put you, and don’t be longing after
something higher. Our Father in Heaven knows just
what is best for us; as He didn’t see fit to put you
up at Aikenside, ’tain’t no ways likely you’ll ever live
in the like of it.”
“Not unless I should happen to marry a rich man.
Poor girls like me have sometimes done that, haven’t
they?” was Maddy’s demure reply.
Grandpa Markham shook his head.
“They have, but it’s mostly their ruination; so
don’t build castles in the air about this Guy Remington.”
“Me! oh, grandpa, I never dreamed of Mr. Guy!”
and Madeline blushed half indignantly. “He’s too
rich, too aristocratic, though Sarah said he didn’t act
30one bit proud, and is so pleasant that the servants all
worship him, and Mrs. Noah thinks him good enough
for the Queen of England. I shall think so, too, if he
lets you have the money. How I wish it was Monday
night, so we could know for sure!”
“Perhaps we both shall be terribly disappointed,”
suggested grandpa, but Maddy was more hopeful.
She, at least, should not fail; while what she had
heard of Guy Remington, the master of Aikenside,
made her believe that he would accede at once to her
grandfather’s request.
All that night in her dreams she was working to
pay the debt, giving the money herself into the hands
of Guy Remington, whom she had never seen, but
who came up before her the tall, handsome-looking
man she had so often heard described by Sarah Jones
after her return from Aikenside, where she had once
done some plain sewing for the housekeeper. Even
the next day, when, by her grandparent’s side, Maddy
knelt reverently in the small church at Honedale, her
thoughts were more intent upon the to-morrow and
Aikenside than the sacred words her lips were uttering.
She knew it was wrong, and with a nervous start tried
to bring her mind back from decimal fractions to
what the minister was saying; but Maddy was mortal,
31and right in the midst of the Collect, Aikenside and
its owner would rise before her, together with the
wonder how she and her grandfather would feel one
week from that day. Would the desired certificate be
hers? or would she be disgraced forever and ever by
a rejection? Would the mortgage be paid and her
grandfather at ease, or would his heart be breaking
with the knowing he must leave what had been his
home for so many years?
But no such thoughts troubled the aged disciple
beside her—the good old man, whose white
locks swept the large-lettered book over which his
wrinkled face was bent, as he joined in the responses,
or said the prayers whose words had so soothing
an influence upon him, carrying his thoughts
upward to the house not made with hands, which he
felt assured would one day be his. Once or twice, it
is true, the possibility of losing the dear old red cottage
flitted across his mind with a keen, sudden pang,
but he put it quickly aside, remembering at the same
instant how the Father he loved doeth all things well
to such as are his children. Grandpa Markham was
old in the Christian course, while Maddy could hardly
be said to have commenced it as yet, and so to her that
April Sunday was long and wearisome. How she did
32wish she might just look over the geography, by way
of refreshing her memory, and see exactly how the
rule for extracting the cubic root did read, but Maddy
forbore, and read only the Pilgrim’s Progress, the
Bible, and the book brought from the Sunday-school,
vainly imagining that by so doing she was earning the
good she so much desired.
With the earliest dawn of day she was up, and her
grandmother heard her repeating to herself much of
what she fancied Dr. Holbrook might question her
upon. Even when bending over the wash-tub, for
there were no servants at the red cottage, a book was
arranged before her so that she could study with her
eyes, while her fat hands and dimpled arms were busy
in the suds. Before ten o’clock everything was done,
the clothes, white as snow-drops in the garden beds,
were swinging upon the line, the kitchen floor was
scrubbed, the windows washed, the best room swept,
the vegetables cleaned for dinner, and then Maddy’s
work was finished. Grandma could do all the rest,
and Madeline was free to pore over her books until
called to dinner; she could not eat so great was her
excitement.
Swiftly the hours flew until it was time to be getting
ready, when again the short hair was deplored, as
33before her looking-glass Madeline brushed and arranged
her shining, beautiful locks. Would Dr. Holbrook
think of her age? Suppose he should ask it.
But no, he wouldn’t. Only census-takers did that.
If Mr. Green thought her old enough, surely it was
not a matter with which the doctor need trouble
himself; and, somewhat at ease on that point, Madeline
donned her longest frock, and, standing on a chair,
tried to discover how much of her pantalet was
visible.
“I could see splendidly in Mr. Remington’s mirrors.
Sarah Jones says they come to the floor,” she said to
herself, with a half sigh of regret that her lot had not
been cast in some such place as Aikenside, instead of
there beneath the hill in that wee bit of a cottage,
whose roof slanted back until it almost touched the
ground. “After all, I guess I’m happier here,” she
thought. “Everybody likes me, while if I were Mr.
Guy’s sister and lived at Aikenside, I might be proud
and wicked, and——”
She did not finish the sentence, but somehow the
story of Dives and Lazarus, read by her grandfather
that morning, recurred to her mind, and feeling how
much rather she would rest in Abraham’s bosom than
share the fate of him who once was clothed in purple
34and fine linen, she pinned on her little neat plaid
shawl, and, tying the blue ribbons of her coarse straw
hat under her chin, glanced once more at the rule for
the formidable cube root, and then hurried down to
where her grandfather and old Sorrel were waiting for
her.
“I shall be so happy when I come back, because
it will then be over, just like having a tooth out, you
know,” she said to her grandmother, who bent down
for the good-bye kiss, without which Maddy never left
her. “Now, grandpa, drive on; I was to be there at
three,” and chirruping herself to Sorrel, the impatient
Maddy went riding from the cottage door, chatting
cheerily until the village of Devonshire was reached;
then, with a farewell to her grandfather, who never
dreamed that the man he was seeking was so near, she
tripped up the walk, and soon stood in the presence of
not only Dr. Holbrook, but also of Guy Remington.
CHAPTER III. THE EXAMINATION.
35
It was Guy who received her, Guy who
pointed to a chair, Guy who seemed perfectly
at home, and, naturally enough she
took him for Dr. Holbrook, wondering who the other
black-haired man could be, and if he meant to stay in
there all the while. It would be very dreadful if he
did, and in her agitation and excitement the cube root
was in danger of being altogether forgotten. Half
guessing the cause of her uneasiness, and feeling more
averse than ever to taking part in the matter, the
doctor, after a hasty survey of her person, withdrew
into the background, and sat where he could not be
seen. This brought the short dress into full view, together
with the dainty little foot nervously beating the
floor.
“She’s very young,” he thought; “too young, by
far;” and Maddy’s chances of success were beginning
to decline even before a word had been spoken.
How terribly still it was for the time during which
36telegraphic communications were silently passing between
Guy and the doctor, the latter shaking his head
decidedly, while the former insisted that he should do
his duty. Madeline could almost hear the beatings of
her heart, and only by counting and recounting the
poplar trees growing across the street could she keep
back the tears. What was he waiting for, she wondered,
and, at last, summoning all her courage, she
lifted her great brown eyes to Guy, and said, pleadingly:
“Would you be so kind, sir, as to begin? I am
afraid I shall forget.”
“Yes, certainly,” and electrified by that young,
bird-like voice, the sweetest save one he had ever
heard, Guy took from the pile of books which the
doctor had arranged upon the table, the only one at all
appropriate to the occasion, the others being as far
beyond what was taught in district schools as his
classical education was beyond Madeline’s common
one.
When a boy of ten, or thereabouts, Guy had spent
a part of a summer with his grandmother in the
country, and for a week had attended a district school.
But he was so utterly regardless of rules and restrictions,
talking aloud and walking about whenever
37the fancy took him, that he was ignominiously dismissed
at the end of the week, and that was all the
experience he had ever had in the kind of school
Madeline was to teach. But even this helped him a
little, for remembering that the teacher in Farmingham
had commenced her operations by sharpening a lead
pencil, so he now sharpened a similar one, determining
as far as he could to follow Miss Burr’s example.
Maddy counted every fragment as it fell upon the
floor, wishing so much that he would commence, and
fancying that it would not be half so bad to have him
approach her with some one of the terrible dental
instruments lying before her, as it was to sit and wait
as she was waiting. Had Guy Remington reflected a
little, he would never have consented to do the
doctor’s work; but, unaccustomed to country usages,
especially those pertaining to schools and teachers, he
did not consider that it mattered in the least which
examined that young girl, Dr. Holbrook or himself.
Viewing it somewhat in the light of a joke, he rather
enjoyed it; and as the Farmingham teacher had first
asked her pupils their names and ages, so he, when
the pencil was sharpened sufficiently, startled Madeline
by asking her name.
38“Madeline Amelia Clyde,” was the meek reply,
which Guy recorded with a flourish.
Now, Guy Remington intended no irreverence;
indeed, he could not tell what he did intend, or what
it was which prompted his next query:
“Who gave you this name?”
Perhaps he fancied himself a boy again in the
Sunday-school, and standing before the railing of the
altar, where, with others of his age, he had been asked
the question propounded to Madeline Clyde, who did
not hear the doctor’s smothered laugh as he retreated
into the adjoining room.
In all her preconceived ideas of this examination,
she had never dreamed of being catechised, and with a
feeling of terror as she thought of that long answer to
the question, “What is thy duty to thy neighbor?”
and doubted her ability to repeat it, she said, “My
sponsors, in baptism, gave me the first name of Madeline
Amelia, sir,” adding, as she caught and misconstrued
the strange gleam in the dark eyes bent upon
her, “I am afraid I have forgotten some of the catechism;
I knew it once, but I did not know it was
necessary in order to teach school.”
“Certainly, no; I do not think it is. I beg your
pardon,” were Guy Remington’s ejaculatory replies, as
39he glanced from Madeline to the open door of the
adjoining room, where was visible a slate, on which, in
large letters, the amused doctor had written “Blockhead.”
There was something in Madeline’s quiet, womanly,
earnest manner which commanded Guy’s respect, or
he would have given vent to the laughter which was
choking him, and thrown off his disguise. But he
could not bear now to undeceive her, and resolutely
turning his back upon the doctor, he sat down by the
pile of books and commenced the examination in
earnest, asking first her age.
“Going on fifteen,” sounded older to Madeline
than “fourteen and a half,” so “Going on fifteen,”
was her reply, to which Guy responded, “That is very
young, Miss Clyde.”
“Yes, but Mr. Green did not mind. He’s the
committee-man. He knew how young I was. He
did not care,” Madeline said, eagerly, her great
brown eyes growing large with the look of fear
which came so suddenly into them.
Guy noticed the eyes then, and thought them
very bright and handsome for brown, but not as
handsome as if they had been blue, for Lucy Atherstone’s
were blue; and as he thought of her he was
40glad she was not obliged to sit there in that doctor’s
office, and be questioned by him or any
other man. “Of course, of course,” he said, “if
your employers are satisfied it is nothing to me,
only I had associated teaching with women much
older than yourself. What is logic, Miss Clyde?”
The abruptness with which he put the question
startled Madeline to such a degree that she could
not positively tell whether she had ever heard that
word before, much less could she recall its meaning,
and so she answered frankly, “I don’t know.”
A girl who did not know what logic was did
not know much, in Guy’s estimation, but it would
not do to stop here, and so he asked her next
how many cases there were in Latin!
Maddy felt the hot blood tingling to her very
finger tips, for the examination had taken a course
widely different from her ideas of what it would
probably be. She had never looked inside a Latin
grammar, and again her truthful “I don’t know,
sir,” fell on Guy’s ear, but this time there was a
half despairing tone in the young voice, usually so
hopeful.
“Perhaps then you can conjugate the verb amo,”
41Guy said, his manner indicating the doubt he was
beginning to feel as to her qualifications.
Maddy knew what conjugate meant, but that verb
amo, what could it mean? and had she ever heard
it before? Mr. Remington was waiting for her,
she must say something, and with a gasp she began:
“I amo, thou amoest, he amoes. Plural: We
amo, ye or you amo, they amo.”
Guy looked at her aghast for a single moment,
and then a comical smile broke all over his face, telling
poor Maddy plainer than words could have done,
that she had made a most ridiculous mistake.
“Oh, sir,” she cried, her eyes wearing the look of
the frightened hare, “it is not right. I don’t know
what it means. Tell me, teach me. What does amo
mean?”
To most men it would not have seemed a very disagreeable
task, teaching young Madeline Clyde what
amo meant, and some such idea flitted across Guy’s
mind, as he thought how pretty and bright was the
eager face upturned to his, the pure white forehead,
suffused with a faint flush, the cheeks a crimson hue,
and the pale lips parted slightly as Maddy appealed
to him for the definition of amo.
“It is a Latin verb, and means to love,” Guy said,
42with an emphasis on the last word, which would have
made Maddy blush had she been less anxious and
frightened.
Thus far she had answered nothing correctly, and
feeling puzzled to know how to proceed, Guy stepped
into the adjoining room to consult with the doctor,
but he was gone. So returning again to Madeline,
Guy resumed the examination by asking her how
“minus into minus could produce plus.”
Again Maddy was at fault, and her low-spoken
“I don’t know” sounded like a wail of despair.
Did she know anything? Guy wondered, and feeling
some curiosity now to ascertain that fact, he plied her
with questions philosophical, questions algebraical,
and questions geometrical, until in an agony of distress
Maddy raised her hands deprecatingly, as if she
would ward off any similar questions, and sobbed
out:
“Oh, sir, no more of this. It makes my head so
dizzy. They don’t teach that in common schools. Ask
me something I do know.”
Suddenly it occurred to Guy that he had gone entirely
wrong, and mentally cursing himself for the
blockhead the doctor had called him, he asked, kindly:
43“What do they teach? Perhaps you can enlighten
me?”
“Geography, arithmetic, grammar, history, and
spelling-book,” Madeline replied, untying and throwing
off her bonnet, in the vain hope that it might bring
relief to her poor, giddy head, which throbbed so
fearfully that all her ideas seemed for the time to have
left her.
This was a natural consequence of the high excitement
under which she was laboring, and so, when
Guy did ask her concerning the books designated, she
answered but little better than before, and he was
wondering what he should do next, when the doctor’s
welcome step was heard, and leaving Madeline again,
he repaired to the next room to report his ill success.
“She does not seem to know anything. The veriest
child ought to do better than she has done. Why,
she has scarcely answered half a dozen questions correctly.”
This was what poor Maddy heard, though it was
spoken in a low whisper; but every word was distinctly
understood, and burned into her heart’s core,
drying her tears and hardening her into a block of
marble. She knew that Guy had not done her justice,
and this helped to increase the torpor stealing over
44her. Still she did not lose a syllable of what was
said in the back office, and her lip curled scornfully
when she heard Guy remark, “I pity her; she is so
young, and evidently takes it so hard. Maybe she’s as
good as they average. Suppose we give her the certificate,
anyway?”
Then Dr. Holbrook spoke, but to poor, bewildered
Maddy his words were all a riddle. It was nothing to
him, whether she knew anything or not,—who was he
that he should be dictating thus? There seemed to be
a difference of opinion between the young men, Guy
insisting that out of pity she should not be rejected;
and the doctor demurring on the ground that he ought
to be more strict, especially with the first one. As
usual, Guy overruled, and seating himself at the table,
the doctor was just commencing, “I hereby certify——”
while Guy was bending over him, when the
latter was startled by a hand laid firmly on his arm,
and, turning quickly, he confronted Madeline Clyde,
who, with her short hair pushed back from her blue-veined
forehead, her face as pale as ashes, save where
a round spot of purplish red burned upon her cheeks,
and her eyes gleaming like coals of fire, stood before
him.
“He need not write that,” she said, huskily, pointing
45to the doctor. “It would be a lie, and I could not
take it. You do not think me qualified. I heard you
say so. I do not want to be pitied. I do not want a
certificate because I am so young, and you think I’ll
feel badly. I do not want——”
Here her voice failed her, her bosom heaved, and
the choking sobs came thick and fast, but still she
shed no tear, and in her bright, dry eyes there was a
look which made both those young men turn away
involuntarily. Once Guy tried to excuse her failure,
saying she no doubt was frightened. She would
probably do better again, and might as well accept
the certificate; but Madeline still said no, so decidedly
that further remonstrance was useless. “She would
not take what she had no right to,” she said, “but if
they pleased she would wait there in the back office
until her grandfather came back; it would not be
long, and she should not trouble them.”
Guy brought her the easy-chair from the front
room and placed it for her by the window. With a
faint smile she thanked him and said: “You are very
kind,” but the smile hurt Guy cruelly, it was so sad,
so full of unintentional reproach, while the eyes she
lifted to his looked so grieved and weary that he
insensibly murmured to himself, “Poor child!” as he
46left her, and with the doctor repaired to the house,
where Agnes was impatiently waiting for them, and
where, in the light badinage which followed, they
forgot poor little Maddy.
It was the first keen disappointment she had ever
known, and it crushed her as completely as many an
older person has been crushed by heavier calamities.
“Disgraced forever and ever,” she kept repeating
to herself, as she tried to shake off the horrid nightmare
stealing over her. “How can I hold up my head
again at home, where nobody will understand just how
it was, except grandpa and grandma? The people
will say I do not know anything, and I do! I do! Oh,
grandpa, I can’t earn that thirty-six dollars now. I
most wish I was dead, and I am—I am dying. Somebody—come—quick!”
There was a low cry for help, succeeded by a fall,
and while in Mrs. Conner’s parlor Guy Remington and
Dr. Holbrook were chatting gayly with Agnes, Madeline
was lying upon the office floor, white and insensible.
Little Jessie Remington, tired of sitting still and
listening to what her mamma and Mrs. Conner were
saying, had strayed off into the garden, and after
filling her hands with daffodils and early violets,
47made her way at last to the office, the door of which
was partially open. Peering curiously in she saw the
crumpled bonnet, with its ribbons of blue, and
attracted by this advanced into the room, until she
came where Madeline was lying. With a feeling that
something was wrong, Jessie bent over the girl, asking
if she were asleep, while she lifted the long, fringed
lashes drooping on the colorless cheek. The dull,
dead expression of the eyes sent a chill through
Jessie’s heart, and hurrying to the house she cried,
“Oh, brother Guy, somebody’s dead in the office, and
her bonnet is all jammed!”
Scarcely were the words uttered before Guy
and the doctor both were with Madeline, the former
holding her in his arms, while he smoothed the short
hair, thinking how soft and luxuriant it was, and how
fair was the face which never moved a muscle beneath
his scrutiny. The doctor was wholly self-possessed;
Maddy had no terrors for him now. She
needed his services, and he rendered them willingly,
applying restoratives which soon brought back signs
of life in the rigid form. With a shiver and a moan
Madeline whispered, “Oh, grandma, I’m so tired, and
so sorry, but I could not help it. I forgot everything.”
48By this time Mrs. Conner and Agnes had come
into the office, asking in much surprise who the
stranger was, and what was the cause of her illness.
As if there had been a previous understanding between
them, the doctor and Guy were silent with regard
to the recent farce enacted between them, and
simply said it was some one who had come for medical
advice, and it was possible she was in the habit of
fainting; many people were. Very daintily, Agnes
held back the skirt of her rich silk as if fearful that it
might come in contact with Madeline’s plain delaine;
then, as the scene was not very interesting, she returned
to the house, bidding Jessie do the same.
But Jessie refused, choosing to stay by Madeline,
who by this time had been placed upon the comfortable
lounge, where she preferred to remain rather
than be taken to the house, as Guy proposed.
“I’m better now, much better,” she said. “Leave
me, please. I’d rather be alone.”
So they left her with Jessie, who, fascinated by
the sweet young face, knelt by the lounge, and, laying
her curly head caressingly against Madeline’s arm,
aid to her, “Poor girl, you’re sick, and I’m so sorry.
What makes you sick?”
There was genuine sympathy in that little voice,
49and with a cry as of sudden pain, Maddy clasped the
child in her arms and burst into a wild fit of weeping,
which did her a great deal of good. Forgetting
that Jessie could not understand, and feeling it a
relief to tell her grief to some one, she said, in reply to
Jessie’s repeated inquiries as to what was the matter,
“I did not get a certificate, and I wanted it so much,
for we are poor, and our house is mortgaged, and I
was going to help grandpa pay it; and now I never
can, and the house must be sold.”
“It’s dreadful to be poor!” sighed little Jessie, as
her fingers threaded the soft, nut-brown hair resting
in her lap, where Maddy had laid her aching head.
Maddy did not know who this beautiful child was,
but her sympathy was very sweet, and they talked
together confidingly, as children will, until Mrs. Agnes’
voice was heard calling to her little girl that it
was time to go.
“I love you, Maddy, and I mean to tell brother
Guy all about it,” Jessie said, as she wound her arms
round Madeline’s neck and kissed her at parting.
It never occurred to Maddy to ask her name, she
felt so stupefied and bewildered, and with a responsive
kiss she sent her away. Then leaning her head
upon the table, she forgot everything but her own
50wretchedness, and so did not see the gayly-dressed,
haughty-looking lady who swept past the door, accompanied
by Guy and Dr. Holbrook. Neither did
she hear, or notice, if she did, the hum of their
voices, as they talked together for a moment, Agnes
asking the doctor very prettily to come up to Aikenside
while she was there, and enliven her a little.
Engaged young men like Guy were so stupid, she
said, as with a merry laugh she sprang into the carriage;
and, bowing gracefully to the doctor, was
driven rapidly toward Aikenside.
Rather slowly the doctor returned to the office,
and after fidgeting for a time among the powders
and phials, summoned courage to ask Madeline how
she felt, and if any of the fainting symptoms had
returned.
“No, sir,” was all the reply she gave him, never
lifting up her head, or even thinking which of the two
young men it was speaking to her.
There was a call just then for Dr. Holbrook; and
leaving his office in charge of Tom, he went away,
feeling slightly uncomfortable whenever he thought
of the girl, to whom he knew that justice had not
been done.
“I half wish I had examined her myself,” he said.
51“Of course she was excited, and could not answer;
beside, hanged if I don’t believe it was all humbug
tormenting her with Greek and Latin and logic. Guy
is such a stupid; I’ll question her myself when I get
back, and if she’ll possibly pass, give her the certificate.
Poor child! how white she was, and what a
queer look there was in those great eyes, when she
said, ‘I shall not take it.’”
Never in his life before had Dr. Holbrook been as
much interested in any woman who was not sick as he
was in Madeline, and determining to make his call on
Mrs. Briggs as brief as possible, he alighted at her
gate, and knocked impatiently at her door. He found
her pretty sick, while both her children needed a prescription,
and he was detained so long that his heart
misgave him on his homeward route, lest Maddy
should be gone, and with her the chance to remedy the
wrong he might have done her.
Maddy was gone, and the wheel-ruts of the square-boxed
wagon were fresh before the door when he
came back. Grandpa Markham had returned, and
Madeline, who recognized old Sorrel’s step, had gathered
her shawl around her, and gone sadly out to
meet him. One look at her face was sufficient.
“You failed, Maddy?” the old man said, fixing
52about her feet the warm buffalo robe, for the night
wind was blowing cool.
“Yes, grandpa, I failed.”
They were out of the village and more than a mile
on their way home before Madeline found voice to say
so much, and they were nearer home by half a mile
before the old man answered back:
“And, Maddy, I failed, too.”
CHAPTER IV. GRANDPA MARKHAM.
53
Mrs. Noah, the housekeeper, at Aikenside,
was slicing vegetable oysters for the nice
little dish intended for her own supper,
when the head of Sorrel came around the corner of the
building, followed by the square-boxed wagon, containing
Grandpa Markham, who, bewildered by the
beauty and spaciousness of the grounds, and wholly
uncertain as to where he ought to stop, had driven
over the smooth-gravelled road round to the side
kitchen door, Mrs. Noah’s special domain, and as
sacred to her as Betsey Trotwood’s patch of green.
“In the name of wonder, what codger is that? and
what is he doing here?” was Mrs. Noah’s exclamation,
as she dropped the bit of salsify she was scraping, and
hurrying to the door, she called out, “I say, you, sir,
what made you drive up here, when I’ve said over and
over again, that I wouldn’t have wheels tearing up
my turf and gravel?”
“I—I beg your pardon. I lost my way, I guess,
there was so many turnin’s. I’m sorry, but a little
54rain will fetch it right,” grandpa said, glancing ruefully
at the ruts in the gravel and the marks on the
turf.
Mrs. Noah was not at heart an unkind woman, and
something in the benignant expression of the old man’s
face, or in the apologetic tone of his voice, mollified
her somewhat, and without further comment she stood
waiting for his next remark. It was a most unfortunate
one, for though as free from weaknesses as most
of her sex, Mrs. Noah was terribly sensitive as to her
age, and the same census-taker would never venture
twice within her precincts. Glancing at her dress,
which this afternoon was much smarter than usual,
grandpa thought she could not be a servant; and as
she seemed to have a right to say where he should
drive and where he should not, the meek old man concluded
she was a near relation of Guy—mother, perhaps;
but no, Guy’s mother was dead, as grandpa well
knew, for all Devonshire had heard of the young bride
Agnes, who had married Guy’s father for money and
rank. To have been mistaken for Guy’s mother would
not have offended Mrs. Noah particularly; but she
was fearfully shocked when Grandpa Markham said:
“I come on business with Squire Guy. Are you
his gran’marm?”
55“His gran’marm!” screamed Mrs. Noah fearfully.
“Bless you, man, Squire Guy, as you call him, is
twenty-five years old.”
As Grandpa Markham was rather blind he failed to
see the point, but knew that in some way he had given
offense.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am. I was sure you was
some kin—maybe an a’nt.”
No, she was not even that, but, willing enough to
let the old man believe her a Remington—she did not
explain that she was only the housekeeper—but she
simply said:
“If it’s Mr. Guy you want, I can tell you he is not
at home, which will save you getting out.”
“Not at home, and I’ve come so far to see him!”
grandpa exclaimed, and in his voice there was so much
genuine disappointment that Mrs. Noah rejoined quite
kindly:
“He’s gone over to Devonshire with the young
lady, his step-mother. Perhaps you might tell your
business to me; I know all Mr. Guy’s affairs.”
“If I might come in, ma’am, and warm me,” grandpa
answered, meekly, as through the open door he
caught glimpses of a cheerful fire. “It’s mighty chilly
for such as me.”
56He did look cold and blue, Mrs. Noah thought, and
she bade him come in, feeling a very little contempt
for the old-fashioned camlet cloak in which his feet
became entangled, and smiling inwardly at the
shrunken, faded pantaloons, betokening poverty.
“As you know all Squire Guy’s affairs,” grandpa
said, when he was seated before the fire, “maybe you
could tell whether he would be likely to lend a
stranger three hundred dollars, and that stranger
me?”
Mrs. Noah stared at him aghast. Was he crazy,
or did he mean to insult her master? Evidently
neither. He seemed as sane as herself, while no one
could associate an insult with him. He did not know
anything. That was the solution of his audacity, and
pityingly, as she would have addressed a half idiot,
Mrs. Noah made him understand how impossible it
was for him to think her master would lend money to
a stranger like him.
“You say he’s gone to Devonshire,” grandpa said,
softly, with a quiver on his lip, when she had finished.
“I wish I’d knew it; I left my granddarter there to
be examined. Maybe I’ll meet him going back, and
can ask him.”
“I tell you it won’t be any use. Mr. Guy has no
57three hundred dollars to throw away,” was Mrs. Noah’s
sharp rejoinder.
“Wall, wall, we won’t quarrel about it,” the old
man replied in his most conciliatory manner, as he
turned his head away to hide the starting tear.
Grandfather Markham’s heart was very sore, and
Mrs. Noah’s harshness troubled him. He could not
bear to think that she really was cross with him;
besides that, he wanted something to take to Maddy
besides disappointment, so by way of testing Mrs.
Noah’s amiability and pleasing Maddy too, he said as
he arose, “I’m an old man, lady, old enough to be
your father.” Here Mrs. Noah’s face grew brighter,
and she listened attentively while he continued. “You
won’t take what I say amiss, I’m sure. I have a little
girl at home, a grandchild, who has heard big stories
of the fine things at Aikenside. She has a hankerin’
after such vanities, and it would please her mightily
to have me tell her what I saw up here, so maybe you
wouldn’t mind lettin’ me go into that big room where
the silk fixin’s are and the tall lookin’ glass. I’ll take
off my shoes, if you say so.”
“Your shoes won’t hurt an atom; come right
along,” Mrs. Noah replied, now in the best of moods,
for except her cup of green tea with raspberry jam
58and cream, she enjoyed nothing more than showing
her master’s handsome house, in which she had lived
so long that, in a way, she considered it her own.
Conducting him through the wide hall, she ushered
him into the drawing-room, where for a time he stood
perfectly bewildered. It was his first introduction to
rosewood, velvet, and brocatelle, and it seemed to him
as if he had suddenly been transported to fairy-land.
“Maddy would like this—it’s her nature,” he
whispered, advancing a step or two, and setting down
his feet as softly as if stepping on eggs.
Happening to lift his eyes before one of the long
mirrors, he spied himself, wondering much what that
“queer looking chap” was doing there in the midst of
such elegance, and why Mrs. Noah did not turn him
out! Then mentally asking forgiveness for this flash
of pride, and determined to make amends, he bowed
low to the figure in the glass, which bowed as low in
return, but did not reply to the good-natured remark,
“How d’ye do—pretty well to-day?”
There was a familiar look about the cape of the
camlet cloak worn by the man in the glass, and
Grandpa Markham’s face turned crimson as the truth
burst upon him.
“How ’shamed of me Maddy would be,” he thought,
59glancing sidewise at Mrs. Noah, who had witnessed
the blunder, and was now looking from the window to
hide her laughter.
Grandpa believed she did not see him, and comforted
with that assurance he began to remark upon
the mirror, saying, “it made it appear as if there
was two of you,” a remark which Mrs. Noah fully
appreciated. He saw the silk chairs next, and slyly
touched one to see if it did feel like the gored,
peach-blossom dress worn by his wife forty-two years
ago that very spring. Then he tried one of them,
examined the rare ornaments in the room and the
grand piano, and came near bowing again to the
portrait of the first Mrs. Remington, which hung upon
the wall.
“This will last Maddy a week. I thank you,
ma’am. You have added some considerable to the
happiness of a young girl, who wouldn’t disgrace even
such a room as this,” he said, as he passed into the
hall.
Mrs. Noah received his thanks graciously and led
him to the yard, where Sorrel stood waiting for him.
“Odd, but clever as the day is long,” was Mrs.
Noah’s comment, as, after seeing him safe out of the
60yard, she went back to her vegetable oysters, which
were in danger of being overdone.
Driving at a brisk trot through the grounds, Sorrel
was soon out upon the highway; and with spirits exhilarated
by thoughts of going home, he kept up the
trot until, turning a sudden corner, his master saw the
carriage from Aikenside approaching at a rapid rate.
The driver, Paul, saw him too, but scorning to give
half the road to such as Sorrel and the square-boxed
wagon, he kept steadily on, while Grandpa Markham,
determining to speak to Guy, reined his horse
a little nearer, raising his hand in token that the
negro should stop. As a natural consequence, the
wheels of the two vehicles became interlocked, and as
the powerful grays were more than a match for
Sorrel, the front wheel of Grandpa Markham’s
wagon was wrenched off, and the old man precipitated
to the ground, which, fortunately for him, was
in that locality covered with sand banks, so that he
was only stunned for an instant, and failed to hear
the insolent negro’s remark: “Served you right, old
cove, might have turned out for a gentleman;”
neither did he see the sudden flashing of Guy Remington’s
eye, as, leaping from his carriage, he seized
the astonished African by the collar, and demanded
61“What he meant by serving an old man so shameful
a trick, and then insulting him?”
All apology and regret, the cringing driver tried
to make some excuse, but Guy stopped him short,
telling him to see how much the wagon was damaged,
while he ran to the old man, who had recovered from
the first shock, and was trying to extricate himself
from the folds of the camlet cloak. Near by was a
blacksmith’s shop, and thither Guy ordered his driver
to take the broken-down wagon with a view to getting
it repaired.
“Tell him I want it done at once,” he said,
authoritatively, as if he knew his name carried weight
with it; then turning to grandpa, he asked again
if he were hurt.
“No, not specially—jolted my old bones some.
You are very kind, sir,” grandpa replied, brushing the
dust from his pantaloons and then involuntarily grasping
Guy’s arm for support, as his weak knees began to
tremble from the effects of excitement and fright.
“That darkey shall rue this job,” Guy said,
savagely, as he gazed pityingly upon the shaky old
creature beside him. “I’ll discharge him to-morrow.”
“No, young man. Don’t be rash. He’ll never do’t
again; and sprigs like him think they’ve a right to
62make fun of old codgers like me,” was grandpa’s meek
expostulation.
“Do, pray, Guy, how long must we wait here?”
Agnes asked, impatiently, leaning out of the carriage
and partially drawing her veil over her face as she
glanced at Grandpa Markham, but a look from Guy
silenced her; and turning again to grandpa, he asked:
“What did you say? You have been to Aikenside
to see me?”
“Yes, and I was sorry to miss you. I—I—it
makes me feel awkward to tell you, but I wanted to
borrow some money, and I didn’t know nobody as
likely to have it as you. That woman up to your
house said she knowed you wouldn’t let me have it,
’cause you hadn’t it to spare. Mebby you haven’t,”
and grandpa waited anxiously for Guy’s reply.
Now Mrs. Noah had a singular influence over her
young master, who was in the habit of consulting her
with regard to his affairs, and nothing could have been
more unpropitious to the success of grandpa’s suit
than knowing she disapproved. Beside this, Guy had
only the previous week lost a small amount loaned
under similar circumstances. Standing silent for a
moment, while he buried and reburied his shining
boots in the hills of sand, he said at last, “Candidly,
63sir, I don’t believe I can accommodate you. I am
about to make repairs at Aikenside, and have partially
promised to loan money on good security to a Mr.
Silas Slocum, who, ‘if things work right,’ as he expresses
it, intends building a mill on some property
which has come, or is coming, into his hands.”
“That’s mine—that’s mine, my homestead,” gasped
grandpa, turning white almost as his hair blowing in
the April wind. “There’s a stream of water on it,
and he says if he forecloses and gets it he shall build
a mill, and tear our old house down.”
Guy was in a dilemma. He had not asked how
much Mr. Markham wanted, and as the latter had not
told him, he naturally concluded it a much larger sum
than it really was, and did not care just then to lend
it.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” he said, after a little.
“I’ll drop Slocum a note to-night saying I’ve changed
my mind, and shall not let him have the money. Perhaps,
then, he won’t be so anxious to foreclose, and
will give you time to look among your friends.”
Guy laid a little emphasis on that last word, and
looking up quickly grandpa was about to say, “I am
not so much a stranger as you think. I knew your
father well;” but he checked himself with the thought,
64“No, that will be too much like begging pay for a
deed of mercy done years ago.” So Guy never suspected
that the old man before him had once laid his
father under a debt of gratitude. The more he reflected
the less inclined he was to lend the money, and
as grandpa was too timid to urge his needs, the result
was, that when at last the wheel was replaced, and
Sorrel again trotted on toward Devonshire, he drew
after him a sad, heavy heart, and not once until the
village was reached did he hear the cheery chuckle
with which his kind master was wont to encourage
him.
“Poor Maddy! I dread tellin’ her the most, she
was so sure,” grandpa whispered, as he stopped before
the office, where Maddy waited for him.
But Maddy’s disappointment was keener than his
own, and so, after the sorrowful words, “And I failed,
too,” he tried to comfort the poor child, who, leaning
her throbbing head against his shoulder, sobbed bitterly,
as in the soft spring twilight they drove back to
the low red cottage where grandma waited for them.
CHAPTER V. THE RESULT.
65
It was Farmer Green’s new buggy and Farmer
Green’s bay colt which, three days later,
stopped before Dr. Holbrook’s office, and
not the square-boxed wagon, with old Sorrel attached,
for the former was standing quietly in the chip-yard,
behind the low red house, while the latter, with his
nose over the barn-yard fence, was neighing occasionally,
as if he missed the little hands which had
daily fed him the oatmeal he liked so much, and
which now lay hot and parched and helpless upon the
white counterpane which Grandma Markham had spun
and woven herself.
Maddy might have been just as sick as she was if
the examination had never occurred, but it was natural
for those who loved her to impute it all to the
effects of excitement and cruel disappointment, so
there was something like indignation mingling with
the sorrow gnawing at the hearts of the old couple as
they watched by their fever-stricken darling. Farmer
66Green, too, shared the feeling, and numerous at first
were his animadversions against that prig of a Holbrook,
who was not fit to doctor a cat, much less
“examine a school-marm.” But when Maddy grew so
sick as not to know him or his wife, he laid aside his
prejudices, and suggested to Grandpa Markham that
Dr. Holbrook be sent for.
“He’s great on fevers,” he said, “and is good on
curin’ sick folks, I s’pose;” so, though he would have
preferred some one else should have been called, confidence
in the young doctor’s skill won the day, and
grandpa consented, and Farmer Green was sent for the
physician, to whom he said, with his usual bluntness:
“Well, you nigh about killed our little Maddy
t’other day, when you refused the stifficut, and now
we want you to cure her.”
The doctor looked up in surprise, but Farmer
Green soon explained his meaning, making out a most
aggravated case, and representing Maddy as wild with
delirium.
“Keeps talkin’ about the big books, the Latin and
the Hebrew, and even Catechism, as if such like was
’lowed in our school. I s’pose you didn’t know no
better; but if Maddy dies, you’ll have it to answer
for, I reckon.”
67The doctor did not try to excuse himself, but hastily
took down the medicines he thought he might
need, and stowed them carefully away.
He had expected to hear from that examination,
but not in this way, and rather nervously he made
some inquiries, as to how long she had been ill, and so
forth.
Maddy’s case lost nothing by Mr. Green’s account,
and by the time the doctor’s horse was ready, and he
on his way to the cottage, he had arrived at the conclusion
that of all the villainous men outside the walls
of the State’s Prison he was the most villainous, and
Guy Remington next.
What a cozy little chamber it was where Maddy
lay,—just such a room as a girl like her might be supposed
to occupy, and the young doctor felt like treading
upon forbidden ground as he entered the room
which told so plainly of girlish habits, from the fairy
slippers hung on a peg, to the fanciful little work-box
made of cones and acorns. Maddy was asleep, and
sitting down beside her the doctor asked that the shawl
which had been pinned before the window to exclude
the light might be removed, so that he could see her,
68and thus judge better of her condition. They took
the shawl away, and the sunlight came streaming in,
disclosing to the doctor’s view the face never before
seen distinctly, or thought much about, if seen. It
was ghastly pale now, save where the hot blood seemed
bursting through the cheeks, while the beautiful brown
hair was brushed back from the brow where the veins
were swollen and full. The lips were slightly apart,
and the hot breath came in quick, panting gasps, while
occasionally a faint moan escaped them, and once the
doctor heard, or thought he heard, the sound of his
own name. One little hand lay upon the bed-spread,
but the doctor did not touch it. Ordinarily he would
have grasped it as readily as if it had been a piece of
marble, but the sight of Maddy, lying there so sick,
and the fear that he had helped to bring her where she
was, awoke to life a curious state of feeling with regard
to her, making him almost as nervous as on the
day when she appeared before him as candidate No. 1.
“Feel her pulse, doctor; it is faster most than
you can count,” Grandma Markham whispered; and
thus entreated, the doctor took the hot, soft hand in
his own, its touch sending through his frame a thrill
such as the touch of no other hand had ever sent.
But somehow the act reassured him. All fear of
69Maddy vanished, leaving behind only an intense
desire to help, if possible, the young girl whose fingers
seemed to cling round his own as he felt for and found
the rapid pulse.
“If she would waken,” he said, laying the hand
softly down and placing his other upon her burning
forehead.
And, after a time, Maddy did awaken, but in the
eyes fixed, for a moment, so intently on him, there
was no look of recognition, and the doctor was half
glad that it was so. He did not wish her to associate
him with her late disastrous failure; he would rather
she should think of him as some one come to cure her,
for cure her he would, he said to himself, as he gazed
into her childish face and thought how sad it was for
such as she to die. When he first entered the cottage
he had been struck with the extreme plainness of the
furniture, betokening the poverty of its inmates; but
now he forgot everything except the sick girl, who
grew more and more restless, and kept talking of him
and the Latin verb which meant to love, and which
was not in the grammar.
“Guy was a fool and I was a brute,” the doctor
mattered, as he folded up the bits of paper whose
70contents he hoped might do much toward saving
Maddy’s life.
Then, promising to come again, he rode rapidly
away, to visit other patients, who that afternoon were
in danger of being sadly neglected, so constantly was
their physician’s mind dwelling upon the little, low
chamber where Maddy Clyde was lying. As night
closed in she awoke to partial consciousness, and heard
that Dr. Holbrook had been there prescribing for her.
Turning her face to the wall, she seemed to be thinking;
then calling her grandmother to her she asked
“Did he smooth my hair and say, ‘poor child?’”
Her grandmother hardly thought he did, though
she was not in the room all the time. “He had staid
a long while and was greatly interested,” she said.
Maddy had a vague remembrance of such an
incident, and in her heart forgave the doctor for his
rejection, and thought only how handsome he had
looked, even while tormenting her with such unheard-of
questions, and how kind he was to her now. The
sight of her grandfather, who came in to see her,
awoke a new train of ideas, and bidding him to sit
beside her, she asked if their home must be sold.
Maddy was not to be put off with an evasion, and so
71grandpa told her honestly at last that Slocum would
probably foreclose and the place be sold.
“But never you mind, Maddy,” he said, cheerily,
when he saw how excited she seemed; “we shall
manage somehow. I can rent two or three rooms
cheap of Mr. Green—he told me so—and with old
Sorrel I can work on the road, and fetch things from
the depot, and in the winter I can shovel snow, and
clean roofs. We shall not starve—not a bit of it—so
don’t you worry, it will make you wus, and I’d
rather lose the old homestead a thousand times over
than lose you.”
Maddy did not reply, but the great tears poured
down her flushed cheeks, as she thought of her feeble
old grandfather working on the road and shoveling
snow to earn his bread; and the fever, which had
seemed to be abating, returned with double force, and
when next morning the doctor came, there was a look
of deep anxiety upon his face as he watched the alarming
symptoms of his delirious patient, who talked incessantly,
not of the examination now, but of the
mortgage and the foreclosure, begging him to see that
the house was not sold; to tell them she was earning
thirty-six dollars by teaching school; that Beauty
should be sold to save their dear old home. All this
72was strange at first to the doctor, but the rather voluble
Mrs. Green, who had come to Grandma Markham’s
relief, enlightened him, dwelling with a kind of malicious
pleasure upon the fact that Maddy’s earnings,
had she been permitted to get a “stifficut,” were to be
appropriated toward paying the debt.
If the doctor had hated himself the previous day
when he rode from the red cottage gate, he hated
himself doubly now as he went dashing down the
road, determined to resign his office of school inspector
that very day. And he did.
Summoning around him those who had been most
active in electing him, he refused to officiate again,
assuring them that if any more candidates came he
should either turn them from his door or give them a
certificate without asking a question.
“Put anybody you like in my place,” he said;
“anybody but Guy Remington. Don’t, for thunder’s
sake, take him.”
There was no probability of this, as Guy lived in
another town, and could not have officiated had he
wished. But the doctor was too much excited to reason
clearly about anything, save Madeline Clyde’s
case; and during the next few weeks his other patients
waited many times in vain for his coming, while
73he sat by Maddy’s side, watching every change,
whether for the worse or better. Even Agnes Remington
was totally neglected; and so one day she sent
Guy to Devonshire to say that as Jessie seemed more
than usually delicate, she wished the doctor to take
her under his charge and visit her at least once a
week. The doctor was not at home, but Tom said he
expected him every moment. So, seating himself in
the arm-chair, Guy waited until he came.
“Well, Hal,” he began, jocosely, but the joking
words he would have uttered next died on his lips as
he noticed the strange look of excitement and anxiety
on the doctor’s face. “What is it?” he asked. “Are
all your patients dead?”
“Guy,” and the doctor came closely to him,
whispering huskily, “you and I are murderers in the
first degree, and both deserve to be hung. Do you
remember that Madeline Clyde whom you insulted
with your logic, and the Catechism, and Latin verbs?
She’d set her heart on that certificate. She wanted
the money, not for new gowns and fooleries, mind,
but to help her old grandfather pay his debts. His
place is mortgaged. I don’t understand it; but he
asked some old hunks to lend him the money, and the
miserly rascal, whoever he was, refused. I wish I had
74it. I’d give it to him out and out. But there’s nothing
to do with the girl—Maddy, they call her. The
disappointment killed her, and she’s dying—is raving
crazy—and keeps talking of that confounded examination.
I tell you, Guy, I get terribly mixed up when
I hear her talk, and my heart thumps like a triphammer.
That’s the reason I have not been up to
Aikenside. I wouldn’t leave Maddy so long as there
was hope, but there is none now. I did not tell them
this morning. I couldn’t make that poor couple feel
worse than they were feeling; but when I looked at
her, tossing from side to side, and picking at the bedclothes,
I knew it would soon be over—that when I
saw her again the poor little arms would be still
enough, and the bright eyes shut forever. Guy, I
couldn’t see her die—I don’t like to see anybody die,
but her, Maddy, of all others—and so I came away.
If you stay long enough, you’ll hear the bell toll, I
reckon. There is none at Honedale Church, which
they attend. They are Episcopalians, you see, and so
they’ll come up here, maybe. I hope I shall be deafer
than an adder.”
Here the doctor stopped, wholly out of breath,
while Guy for a moment sat without speaking a word.
Jessie, in his hearing, had told her mother what the
75sick girl in the doctor’s office had said about being
poor and wanting the money for grandpa; while Mrs.
Noah had given him a rather exaggerated account of
Mr. Markham’s visit; but he had not associated the
two together until now, when he saw the matter as it
was, and almost as much as the doctor himself regretted
the part he had had in Maddy’s illness and her grandfather’s
distress.
“Doc,” he said, laying his hand on the doctor’s
arm, “I am the old hunks, the miserly rascal who refused
the money. I met the old man going home that
day, and he asked me for help. You say the place
must be sold. It never shall, never. I’ll see to that,
and you must save the girl.”
“I can’t, Guy. I’ve done all I can, and now, if
she lives, it will be wholly owing to the prayers that
old saint of a grandfather says for her. I never
thought much of these things until I heard him pray;
not that she should live any way, but that if it were
right Maddy might not die. Guy, there’s something
in such a prayer as that. It’s more powerful than all
my medicine swallowed at one grand gulp.”
Guy didn’t know very much experimentally about
praying, and so he did not respond, but he thought of
Lucy Atherstone, whose life was one act of prayer and
76praise, and he wished she could know of Maddy, and
join her petitions with those of the grandfather.
Starting suddenly from his chair, he exclaimed, “I’m
going down there. I cannot endure to sit here doing
nothing to make amends. It will look queer, too, to
go alone. Ah, I have it! I’ll drive back to Aikenside
for Jessie, who has talked so much of the girl that her
mother, forgetting that she was once a teacher, is disgusted.
Yes, I’ll take Jessie with me, but you must
order it; you must say it is good for her to ride, and,
Hal, give me some medicine for her, just to quiet
Agnes, no matter what, provided it is not strychnine.”
Contrary to Guy’s expectations, Agnes did not
refuse to let Jessie go for a ride, and the little girl
was soon seated by her brother’s side, chatting merrily
of the different things they passed upon the road.
But when Guy told her where they were going, and
why they were going there, the tears came at once
into her eyes, and hiding her face in Guy’s lap she
sobbed bitterly.
“I did like her so much that day,” she said, “and
one looked so sorry, too. It’s terrible to die!”
Then she plied Guy with questions, concerning
Maddy’s probable future. “Would she go to heaven,
sure?” and when Guy answered at random, “Yes,”
77she asked, “How did he know? Had he heard that
Maddy was that kind of good which lets people in
heaven? Because, brother Guy,” and the little
preacher nestled closely to the young man, fingering
his coat buttons as she talked, “because, brother Guy,
folks can be good—that is, not do naughty things—and
still God won’t love them unless they—I don’t exactly
know what, I wish I did.”
Guy drew her closer to him, but to that childish
yearning for knowledge he could not respond, so he
said:
“Who taught you all this, little one?—not your
mother, surely.”
“No, not mamma, but Miriam, the waiting-maid
we left in Boston. She told me about it, and taught
me to pray different from mamma, who sometimes
keeps her eyes open in church when she is on her
knees, and looks at the bonnets near us. Do you
pray, brother Guy?”
The question startled the young man, who did not
know what to answer, and who was glad that his
coachman spoke to him just then, asking if he should
drive through Devonshire village, or go direct to
Honedale by a shorter route.
They would go to the village, Guy said, hoping
78that the doctor might be persuaded to accompany
them. They found the doctor at home and willing to
go with them. Indeed, so impatient had he become
listening for the first stroke of the bell which was to
herald the death he deemed so sure, that he was
the point of mounting his horse and galloping off
alone, when Guy drove up with Jessie. It was five
miles from Devonshire to Honedale, and when they
reached a hill which lay half way between, they
stopped for a few moments to rest the tired horses.
Suddenly, as they sat waiting, a sharp, ringing sound
fell on their ears, and grasping Guy’s knee, the doctor
said, “I told you so; Madeline Clyde is dead.”
It was the Devonshire bell, and its twice three
strokes betokened that it tolled for somebody youthful,
somebody young, like Maddy Clyde. Jessie wept
silently, but there were no tears in the eyes of the
young men, as with beating hearts they sat listening
to the slow, solemn sounds which came echoing up the
hill. There was a pause; the sexton’s task was
nearly done, and it only remained for him to strike
the age, and tell how many years the departed one
had numbered.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten;” Jessie counted aloud, while every stroke fell
79like a heavy blow upon the hearts of the young
men, who a few weeks ago did not know that
Maddy Clyde had ever had existence.
How long it seemed before another stroke, and
Guy was beginning to hope they had heard the last
when again the sound came floating on the air,
and Dr. Holbrook’s lip quivered as he now counted
aloud, “one, two, three, four, five.”
That was all; the bell stopped; and vain were
all their listenings to catch another sound. Fifteen
years only had passed over the form now forever
still.
“She was fifteen,” Guy whispered, remembering
distinctly to have heard that number from Maddy
herself.
“I thought they told me fourteen, but of course
it’s she,” the doctor rejoined. “Poor child, I would
have given much to have saved her.”
Jessie did not speak but once, when she asked
Guy “If it was very far to heaven, and if he
supposed Maddy had got there by this time?”
“Hush, Jessie; don’t ask such questions,” Guy
said; then turning to his companion, he continued:
“We’ll go just the same. I will do what I can
for the old man;” and so the carriage drove on,
80down the hill, across the meadow land, and passed
a low-roofed house, whose walls inclosed the stiffened
form of the boy for whom the bell had
tolled, and who had been the patient of another
than Dr. Holbrook.
Maddy was not dead, but the paroxysm of restlessness
had passed, and she lay now in a heavy
sleep so nearly resembling death that those who
watched by her waited expectantly to see the going
out of her last breath. Never before had a carriage
like that from Aikenside stopped at that humble
cottage, but the neighbors thought it came merely
to bring the doctor, whom they welcomed with a
glad smile, making way for him to pass to Maddy’s
bedside. Guy preferred waiting outside until such
time as Grandpa Markham could speak with him,
but Jessie went with the doctor into the sick-room,
startling even the grandmother, and causing
her to wonder who the richly-dressed child could
be.
“She is dying, doctor,” said one of the women;
but the doctor shook his head, and holding in one
hand his watch, he counted the faint pulse-beats,
as with his eye he measured off the minutes.
“There are too many here,” he said. “She
81needs the air you are breathing,” and in his authoritative
way he cleared the crowded room of
the mistaken friends who were unwittingly breathing
up Maddy’s very life.
The grandparents and Jessie he suffered to remain,
and sitting down by Maddy he watched till the long
sleep was ended. Silently and earnestly the aged
couple prayed for their darling, asking that if possible
she might be spared, and God heard their prayers, lifting,
at last, the heavy lethargy from Maddy’s brain,
and waking her to partial consciousness. It was Jessie
who first caught the expression of the opening eyes,
and darting forward, she exclaimed, “She’s waked up,
Dr. Holbrook. She will live.”
Wonderingly Maddy looked at her, and then, as a
confused recollection of where they had met before
crossed her mind, she smiled faintly, and said:
“Where am I now? Have I never come home,
and is this Dr. Holbrook’s office?”
“No, no; it’s home, your home, and you are getting
well,” Jessie cried, bending over the bewildered
girl. “Dr. Holbrook has cursed you, and Guy is here,
and I, and——”
“Hush, you disturb her,” the doctor said, gently
82pushing Jessie away, and himself asking Maddy how
she felt.
She did not recognize him. She only had a vague
idea that he might be some doctor, but not Dr. Holbrook;
not the one who had so puzzled and tortured
her on a day which seemed now so far behind. From
the white-haired man kneeling by the bedside there
was a burst of thanksgiving for the life restored, and
then Grandpa Markham tottered from the room, out
into the open air, which had never fallen so refreshingly
on his tried frame as it fell now, when he first
knew that Maddy would live. He did not care for his
homestead; that might go, and he still be happy with
Maddy left. But He who had marked that aged disciple’s
every sigh, had another good in store for him,
ordering it so that both should come together, just as
the two disappointments had come hand in hand.
From the soft cushions of his carriage, where
he sat reclining, Guy Remington saw the old man
as he came out, and alighting at once, he accosted
him pleasantly, and then walked with him to the
garden, where, on a rustic bench, built for Maddy
beneath the cherry-trees, Grandpa Markham sat down
to rest. From speaking of Madeline it was easy
83to go back to the day Guy had first met grandpa,
and refused his application for money.
“I have thought better of it since,” he said, “and
am sorry I did not accede to your proposal. One
object of my coming here to-day was to say that
my purse is at your disposal. You can have as
much as you wish, paying me whenever you like, and
the house shall not be sold.”
Guy spoke rapidly, determined to make a clean
breast of it, but grandpa understood him, and bowing
his white head upon his bosom, the big tears dropped
like rain upon the turf, while his lips quivered,
first with thanks to the Providence who had truly
done all things well, and next with thanks to his
benefactor.
“Blessings on your head, young man, for making
me so happy. You are worthy of your father, and he
was the best of men.”
“My father—did you know him?” Guy asked, in
some surprise, and then the story came out, how, years
before, when a city hotel was on fire, and one of
its guests in imminent danger from the locality of his
room, and his own nervous fear, which made him
powerless to act, another guest had braved the hissing
flame, and scaling the tottering wall, had dragged out
84one who, until that hour, was to him an utter
stranger.
Pushing back his snowy hair, Grandfather Markham
showed upon his temple a long white scar of
a wound received the night when he periled his
own life to save that of another. There was a doubly
warm pressure now of the old man’s hand, as Guy
replied, “I’ve heard that story from father himself,
but the name of his preserver had escaped me. Why
didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“I thought ’twould look too much like demanding
it as a right—too much like begging, and I s’pose
I felt too proud. Pride is my besetting sin—the one
I pray most against.”
Guy looked keenly now at the man whose besetting
sin was pride, and as he saw the cheapness of his
attire, his pantaloons faded and short, his coat worn
threadbare and shabby, his shoes both patched at
the toes, his cotton shirt minus a bosom, and then
thought of the humble cottage, with its few rocky
acres, he wondered of what he could be proud.
Meantime for Maddy Dr. Holbrook had prescribed
perfect quiet, bidding them darken the windows from
which the shade had been removed, and ordering all
save the grandmother to leave the room and let the
85patient sleep, if possible. Even Jessie was not permitted
to stay, though Maddy clung to her as to
a dear friend. In a few whispered words Jessie
had told her name, saying she came from Aikenside,
and that her brother Guy was there too, in the
carriage. “He heard how sick you were at Devonshire,
this morning, and drove right home for me
to come to see you. I told him of you that
day in the office, and that’s why he brought me,
I guess. You’ll like Guy, I know—he’s so good.”
Sick and weary as she was, and unable as yet
to comprehend the entire meaning of all she heard,
Maddy was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in knowing
that Guy Remington from Aikenside was interested
in her, and had brought his sister to see her.
Winding her arms around Jessie’s neck, she kissed
the soft, warm cheek, and said, “You’ll come again, I
hope.”
“Yes, every day, if mamma will let me. I don’t
mind it a bit, if you are poor.”
“Come, come,” and Dr. Holbrook, who had all the
while been standing near, took Jessie by the arm and
led her out to where Guy was waiting for her.
CHAPTER VI. CONVALESCENCE.
86
Had it not been for the presence of Dr.
Holbrook, who, accepting Guy’s invitation
to tea, rode back with him to Aikenside,
Mrs. Agnes would have flown into a passion when told
that Jessie had been exposed to fever, of which she
had a great dread.
“There’s no telling what one will catch among
the very poor,” she said to Dr. Holbrook, as she
clasped and unclasped the heavy gold bracelets on her
white, round arm.
“I’ll be answerable for any disease Jessie caught
at Mr. Markham’s,” the doctor replied:
“At Mr. Who’s? What did you call him?”
Agnes asked quickly, the bright color on her cheek
fading as the doctor replied:
“Markham—an old man who lives in Honedale.
You never knew him, of course.”
“Certainly not—how could I?” Agnes replied,
as she took her seat at the tea-table. But her
87white fingers trembled as she handled the china
and silver, and for once she was glad when the doctor
took his leave, and she was alone with Jessie.
“What was the girl’s name?” she asked; “the
one you went to see?”
“Maddy, mother—Madeline Clyde. She’s so pretty.
I’m going to see her again. May I?”
Agnes did not reply directly, but continued to
question the child with regard to the cottage which
Jessie thought so funny, slanting way back, she said,
so that the roof on one side almost touched the
ground. The window panes, too, were so very tiny,
and the room where Maddy lay sick was small and
low.
“Yes, yes, I know,” Agnes said at last, impatiently,
for she was tired of hearing of the cottage
whose humble exterior and interior she knew so much
better than Jessie herself.
But this was not to be divulged; for surely the
haughty Agnes Remington, who, in Aikenside was
looked upon with envy, could have nothing in common
with the red cottage or its inmates. So when
Jessie asked again if she could not visit Maddy on the
morrow, she answered decidedly, “No, daughter, I do
not wish you to associate with such people;” and
88when Jessie insisted on knowing why she must not
associate with such people as Maddy Clyde, the
answer was, “Because you are a Remington;” and as
if this of itself were an unanswerable objection, Agnes
sent her child from her, refusing to talk longer
on a subject so disagreeable to her and so suggestive
of the past. It was in vain that Jessie, and even
Guy himself, tried to revoke the decision. Jessie
should not be permitted to come in contact with
that kind of people, she said, or incur the risk of
catching that dreadful fever.
So day after day, while life and health were
slowly throbbing through her veins, Maddy waited
and longed for the little girl whose one visit to
her sick-room seemed so much like a dream. From
her grandfather she had heard the good news of
Guy Remington’s generosity, and that, quite as much
as Dr. Holbrook’s medicines, helped to bring the
color back to her cheek, and the brightness to her
eyes.
She had been asleep the first time the doctor came
after the occasion of Jessie’s visit, and as sleep,
he said, would do her more good than anything
he might prescribe, he did not waken her; but
for a long time, as it seemed to Grandma Markham,
89who stood a very little in awe of the Boston
doctor, he watched her as she slept, now clasping
the blue-veined wrist as he felt for the pulse, and now
wiping from her forehead the drops of sweat, or
pushing back her soft, damp hair. It would be three
days before he could see her again, for a sick father in
Cambridge needed his attention, and after numerous
directions as to the administering of sundry powders
and pills, he left her, feeling that the next three days
would be long ones to him. Dr. Holbrook did
not stop to analyze the nature of his interest in
Maddy Clyde—an interest so different from any he
had ever felt before for his patients; and even if
he had sought to solve the riddle, he would have
said that the knowing how he had wronged her
was the sole cause of his thinking far more of her and
of her case than of all the other patients on his
list. Dr. Holbrook was a handsome man, a thorough
scholar, and a most skillful physician; but he was
no ladies’ man, and his language and manners were
oftentimes abrupt, even when both were prompted by
the utmost kindness of heart. In his organization,
too, there was not a quick perception of what would
be exactly appropriate, and when, on his return from
Cambridge, he was about starting to visit Maddy
90again, he puzzled his brains until they ached with
wondering what he could do to give her a pleasant
surprise and show that he was not so formidable
a personage as her past experience might lead her
to think.
“If I could only take her something,” he said,
glancing ruefully around his office. “Now, if she
were Jessie, nuts and raisins might answer—but she
must not eat such trash as that;” and he set himself
to think again, just as Guy Remington drove up,
bearing in his hand a most exquisite bouquet, whose
fragrance filled the office at once, and whose beauty
elicited an exclamation of delight even from the
matter-of-fact Dr. Holbrook.
“I thought you might be going down to Honedale
as I knew you returned last night, so I brought these
flowers for your patient, with my compliments; or
if you prefer I will give them to you, and you
can present them as if coming from yourself.”
“As if I would do that,” the doctor answered,
taking the bouquet in his hand the better to examine
and admire it. “Did you arrange it, or your gardener?”
he asked, and when Guy replied that the merit
of arrangement, if merit there were, belonged to
himself, he began to deprecate his own awkwardness
91and want of tact. “Here I have been cudgeling my
head this half hour trying to think what I could
take her as a peace-offering, and could think of
nothing, while you—well, you and I are different
entirely. You know just what is proper—just what
to say, and when to say it—while I am a perfect
bore, and without doubt shall make some ludicrous
blunder in delivering the flowers. To-day will be
the first time really that we meet, as she was sleeping
when I was there last, while on all other occasions
she has paid no attention whatever to me.”
For a moment Guy regarded his friend attentively,
noticing that extra care had been taken with
his toilet, that the collar was fresh from the laundry,
and the new cravat tied in a most unexceptionable
manner, instead of being twisted in a hard knot,
with the ends looking as if they had been chewed.
“Doc,” he said, when his survey was completed,
“how old are you—twenty-six or twenty-seven?”
“Just your age;—why?” and the doctor looked up
with an expression so wholly innocent of Guy’s real
meaning, that the latter, instead of telling why, replied:
“Oh! nothing; only I was wondering if you
would do to be my father. Agnes, I verily believe
92is more than half in love with you; but, on the
whole, I should not like to be your son; so I guess
you’d better take some one younger—say Jessie.
You are only eighteen years her senior.”
The doctor stared at him amazed, and when he
had finished, said, with the utmost candor: “What
has that to do with Madeline? I thought we were
talking of her.”
“Innocent as the new-born babe,” was Guy’s mental
comment, as he congratulated himself on his larger
and more varied experience.
And truly Dr. Holbrook was as simple-hearted as
a child, and never dreamed of Guy’s meaning, or
that any emotion save a perfectly proper one had
a lodgment in his breast as he drove down to
Honedale, guarding carefully Guy’s bouquet, and
wishing he knew just what he ought to say when
he presented it.
Maddy had gained rapidly during the last three
days. Good nursing and the doctor’s medicines were
working miracles, and on the morning when the doctor,
with Guy’s bouquet, was riding rapidly toward
Honedale, she was feeling so much better that in
view of his coming she asked if she could not be
93permitted to receive him in the rocking-chair, instead
of lying there in bed; and when this plan was
vetoed as utterly impossible, she asked anxiously:
“And must I see him in this night-gown! Can’t
I have on my pink gingham wrapper?”
Hitherto Maddy had been too sick to care at
all about her personal appearance, but it was different
now; and thoughts of meeting again the
handsome, stylish-looking man, whom she fully believed
to be Dr. Holbrook, made her rather nervous.
Dim remembrances she had of some one
gliding in and about the room, and when the pain
and noise in her head was in its highest, a hand
large and cool had been laid upon her temples,
quieting the throbbing, and making the blood course
less madly through the swollen veins. They had
told her how kind, how attentive he had been,
and to herself she had said: “He’s sorry about
that certificate. He wishes to show me that he
did not wish to be unkind. Yes, I forgive him;
for I really was very stupid that afternoon.”
And so, in a most forgiving frame of mind,
Maddy submitted to the night dress which grandma
brought in place of the gingham wrapper, and
which became her well, with its daintily-crimped
94ruffles about the neck and wrists, which had grown
so small that Maddy sighed to see how loose they
were as her grandmother buttoned together the wristbands.
“I have been very sick,” she said. “Are my
cheeks as thin as my arms?”
They were not, though they had lost some of their
symmetrical roundness. Still there was much of
childish beauty in the young, eager face, and the hair
had lost comparatively none of its glossy brightness.
“That’s him,” grandma said, as the sound of a
horse’s gallop was heard, and in a moment the doctor
reined up before the gate.
From Mrs. Markham, who met him in the door,
he learned how much better Maddy was; and also
how, as grandma expressed it, “She had been reckoning
on this visit, making herself all a sweat about it.”
Suddenly the doctor felt all his old dread of
Maddy Clyde returning. Why should she worry
herself into a sweat? What was there in that visit
different from any other? Nothing, he said to himself,
nothing; and yet he, too, had been more anxious
about it than any he had ever paid. Depositing his
hat and gloves upon the table, he followed Mrs.
Markham up the stairs, vaguely conscious of wishing
95she would stay out of the room, and very conscious
of feeling glad when just at Maddy’s door and opposite
a little window, she espied the hens busily engaged
in devouring the yeast cakes, with which she
had taken so much pains, and which she had placed in
the hot sun to dry. Finding that they paid no heed
to her loud “shoo, shoos,” she started herself to drive
them away, telling the doctor to go right in by himself.
The perspiration was standing under Maddy’s
hair by this time, and when the doctor stepped across
the threshold, and she knew he really was coming near
her, it oozed out upon her forehead in big, round
drops, while her cheeks glowed with a feverish heat.
Thinking he should get along better if he treated
her just as he would Jessie, the doctor confronted
her at once, and asked:
“How is my little patient to-day?”
A faint scream broke from Maddy’s lips, and she
involuntarily raised her hands to thrust the stranger
away. This black-eyed, black-haired, thick-set man
was not Dr. Holbrook; he was taller, and more
slight, while she had not been deceived in the dark,
brown eyes, which, even while they seemed to be
mocking her, had worn a strange fascination for the
96maiden of fourteen and a half. The doctor fancied
her delirious again, and this reassured him at once.
Dropping the bouquet upon the bed, he clasped one of
her hands in his, and without the slightest idea that
she comprehended him, said soothingly:
“Poor child, are you afraid of me—the doctor,—Dr.
Holbrook?”
Maddy did not try to withdraw her hand, but,
raising her eyes, swimming in tears, to his face, she
stammered out:
“What does it mean, and where is he—the one
who—asked me—those dreadful questions? I thought
that was Dr. Holbrook.”
Here was a dilemma—something for which the
doctor was not prepared, and with a feeling that he
would not betray Guy, he said:
“No; that was some one else—a friend of mine—but
I was there in the back office. Don’t you remember
me? Please don’t grow excited. Compose yourself,
and I will explain all by and by. This is wrong.
’Twill never do,” and talking thus rapidly he wiped
away the sweat, about which grandma had told
him.
Maddy was disappointed, and it took her some
time to rally sufficiently to convince the doctor that
97she was not delirious, as he termed it; but composing
herself at last, she answered all his questions, and
then, as he saw her eyes wandering toward the bouquet,
he suddenly remembered that it was not yet
presented, and placing it in her hands he said:
“You like flowers, I know, and these are for you.
I——”
“Oh! thank you, thank you, doctor: I am so glad.
I love them so much, and you are so kind. What
made you think to bring them? I’ve wanted flowers
so badly; but I could not have them, because I was
sick and did not work in the garden. It was so good
in you;” and in her delight Maddy’s tears dropped
upon the fair blossoms.
For a moment the doctor was sorely tempted to
keep the credit thus enthusiastically given; but he
was too truthful for that, and so, watching her as her
eyes glistened with pleased excitement, he said:
“I am glad you like them, Miss Clyde, and Mr.
Remington will be glad too. He sent them to you
from his conservatory.”
“Not Mr. Remington from Aikenside—not Jessie’s
brother?” and Maddy’s eyes now fairly danced
as they sought the doctor’s face.
“Yes, Jessie’s brother. He came here with her
98once. He is interested in you, and brought these
down this morning to my office.”
“It was Jessie, I guess, who sent them,” Maddy
suggested, but the doctor persisted that it was Guy.
“He wished me to present them with his compliments.
He thought they might please you.”
“Oh! they do, they do!” Maddy replied. “They
almost make me well. Tell him how much I thank
him, and like him, too, though I never saw him.”
The doctor opened his lips to tell her she had seen
him, but changed his mind before the words were uttered.
She might not think so well of Guy, he
thought, and there was no harm in withholding the
truth.
So Maddy had no suspicion that the face she had
thought of so much belonged to Guy Remington.
She had never seen him, of course; but she hoped she
should some time, so as to thank him for his generosity
to her grandfather and his kindness to herself.
Then, as she remembered the message she had sent
him, she began to think that it sounded too familiar,
and said to the doctor:
“If you please, don’t tell Mr. Remington that I
said I liked him—only that I thank him. He would
think it queer for a poor girl like me to send such
99word to him. He is very rich, and handsome, and
splendid, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Guy’s rich and handsome, and everybody
likes him. We were in college together.”
“You were!” Maddy exclaimed. “Then you
know him well, and Jessie, and you’ve been to Aikenside
often? There’s nothing in the world I want so
much as to go to Aikenside. They say it is so beautiful.”
“Perhaps I’ll take you up there some day when
you are strong enough to ride,” the doctor answered,
thinking of his light buggy at home, and wondering
he had not used it more, instead of always riding on
horseback.
Dr. Holbrook looked much older than he was, and
to Maddy he seemed quite fatherly, so that the idea
of riding with him, aside from the honor it might be
to her, struck her much as riding with Farmer Green
would have done. The doctor, too, imagined that his
proposition was prompted solely from disinterested
motives, but he found himself wondering how long it
would be before Maddy would be able to ride a little
distance, just over the hill and back. He was tiring
her, he knew, by talking to her so much; but somehow
it was very delightful there in that sick-room,
100with the summer sunshine stealing through the window
and falling upon the brown head resting on the
pillows. Once he fixed the pillows, arranging them so
nicely that grandma, who had come in from her hens
and yeast cakes, declared “he was as handy as a
woman,” and, after receiving a few general directions
with regard to the future, “guessed, if he wan’t in a
hurry, she’d leave him with Maddy a spell, as there
were a few chores she must do.”
The doctor knew that at least a dozen people were
waiting for him; but still he was in no hurry, he said,
and so for half an hour longer he sat there talking of
Guy, and Jessie, and Aikenside, and wondering he had
never before observed how very becoming a white
wrapper was to sick girls like Maddy Clyde. Had he
been asked the question, he could not have told
whether his other patients wore buff, or brown, or tan
color; but he knew all about Maddy’s dress, and
thought the dainty frill around her slender throat the
prettiest thing that he had ever seen. At last he
really must go, and, bidding Maddy good-bye, he
started on his daily round of visits.
The Aikenside carriage was standing at Mrs. Conner’s
gate when he returned, and Jessie came running
out to meet him, followed by Guy, while Agnes, in
101most becoming attire, sat by the window, looking as
unconcerned at his arrival as if it were not the very
event for which she had been impatiently waiting.
Jessie was a great pet with the doctor, and, lifting her
lightly in his arms, he kissed her forehead where the
golden curls were clustering, and said to her:
“I have seen Maddy Clyde. She asked for you,
and why you do not come to see her, as you promised.”
“Mother won’t let me,” Jessie answered. “She says
they are not fit associates for a Remington.”
There was a sudden flash of contempt on the doctor’s
face, and a gleam of wrath in Agnes’ eyes as she
motioned Jessie to be silent, and then gracefully received
the doctor, who by this time was in the room.
As if determined to monopolize the conversation, and
keep it from turning on the Markhams, Agnes rattled
on for nearly fifteen minutes, scarcely allowing Guy
a chance for uttering a word. But Guy bided his
time, and seized the first favorable opportunity to inquire
after Madeline.
She was improving rapidly, the doctor said, adding,
“You ought to have seen her delight when I
gave her the bouquet. She wished me to thank you
for her.”
102“Indeed,” and Agnes bridled haughtily; “I did
not know that Guy was in the habit of sending bouquets
to such as this Clyde girl. I really must report
him to Miss Atherstone.”
Guy’s seat was very near to Agnes, and, while a
cloud overspread his fine features, he said to her in an
aside:
“Please say in your report that the worst thing
about this Clyde girl is that she aspires to be a
teacher, and possibly a governess.”
There was an emphasis on the last word which
silenced Agnes and set her to beating her French
boot on the carpet; while Guy, turning back to the
doctor, replied to his remark:
“She was pleased, then?”
“Yes; she must be vastly fond of flowers, though
I sometimes fancied that the fact of being noticed by
you afforded almost as much satisfaction as the bouquet
itself. She evidently regards you as a superior
being, and Aikenside a second Paradise, and
asked innumerable questions about you and Jessie,
too.”
“Did she honor me with an inquiry?” Agnes
asked, her tone indicative of sarcasm, though she was
greatly interested as well as relieved by the reply.
103“Yes; she said she had heard that Jessie’s mother
was a beautiful woman, and asked if you were not
born in England.”
“She’s mixed me up with Lucy. Guy, you must go
down and enlighten her,” Agnes said, laughing merrily
and appearing more at ease than she had before
since Maddy Clyde had been the subject of conversation.
Guy did not go down to Honedale—but fruit and
flowers, and a bottle of rare old wine, found their way
to the old red cottage, always brought by Guy’s man,
Duncan, and always accompanied with Mr. Remington’s
compliments. Once, hidden among the rosebuds,
was a childish note from Jessie, some of it printed
and some in the uneven hand of a child just commencing
to write.
It was as follows:
“Dear Maddy:
“I think you have such a pretty name, and so does
Guy, and so does the doctor, too. I want to come see
you, but mamma won’t let me. I think of you ever
so much, and so does Guy, I guess, for he sends you
lots of things. Guy is a nice brother, and is most as
old as mamma. Ain’t that funny? You know my
104first ma is dead. She was Guy’s mother, and my papa
was ever so old. The doctor tells us about you when
he comes to Aikenside. I wish he’d come oftener, for I
love him a bushel—don’t you?
“Yours, respectfully,
“Jessie Agnes Remington.
“P. S.—I am going to put this in just for fun,
right among the buds, where you must look for it.”
This note Maddy read and re-read until she knew
it by heart, especially the part relating to Guy.
Hitherto she had not particularly liked her name,
greatly preferring that it should have been Eliza Ann,
or Sarah Jane; but the knowing that Guy Remington
fancied it made a vast difference, and did much toward
reconciling her. She did not even notice the
clause, “and the doctor too.” His attentions and
likings she took as a matter of course, so quietly and
so constantly had they been given. The day was
very long now which did not bring him to the cottage;
but she missed him much as she would have
missed her brother, if she had had one, though her
pulse always quickened and her cheeks glowed when
she heard him at the gate. The motive-power did not
lie deeper than a great friendliness for one who had
105been instrumental in saving her life. They had talked
over the matter of her examination more than once,
the doctor blaming himself more than was necessary
for his ignorance as to what was required of a
teacher; but when she asked who was his proxy, he
always answered evasively:
“A friend from Boston.”
And this he did to shield Guy, who he knew was
enshrined in the little maiden’s heart as a paragon of
all excellence.
CHAPTER VII. THE DRIVE.
106
Latterly the doctor had taken to driving
in his buggy, and when Maddy was strong
enough he took her with him one day,
and with his own hands adjusted the shawl which
grandma wrapped around her, and tied the white sun-bonnet
which shaded the sweet, pale face, where the
roses were just beginning to bloom again. The doctor
was very happy that morning, and so too was Maddy,
talking to him upon the theme of which she never
tired—Guy Remington, Jessie, and Aikenside. Was it
as beautiful a place as she had heard it was, and didn’t
he think it would be delightful to live there?
“I suppose Mr. Guy will be bringing a wife there
some day when he finds one,” and leaning back in the
buggy Maddy heaved a little sigh, not at thoughts of
Guy Remington’s wife, but because she began to feel
tired, and thus gave vent to her weariness.
The doctor, however, did not so construe it. He
107heard the sigh, and for the first time when listening
to her as she talked of Guy, a keen throb of pain shot
through his heart, a something as near akin to jealousy
as it was possible for him then to feel. But
all unused as he was to the workings of love he did
not at that moment dream of such an emotion in
connection with Madeline Clyde. He only knew that
something affected him unpleasantly, prompting him
to tell Maddy Clyde about Lucy Atherstone, who, in
all probability, would one day come to Aikenside as
its mistress.
“Yes, Guy will undoubtedly marry,” he began, as
just as over the top of the hill they were ascending
horses’ heads were visible, and the Aikenside carriage
appeared in view. “There he is now,” he exclaimed,
adding quickly, “No, I am mistaken, there’s only a
lady inside. It must be Agnes.”
It was Agnes driving out alone, for the sole purpose
of passing a place which had a singular attraction
for her, the old, red cottage in Honedale. She
recognized the doctor, and guessed whom he had with
him. Putting up her glass, for which she had no more
need than Jessie, she scrutinized the little figure bundled
up in shawls, while she smiled her sweetest smile
upon the doctor, and shook back her wealth of curls
108with the air and manner of a young, coquettish
girl.
“Oh, what a handsome lady! Who is she?”
Maddy asked, turning to look after the carriage now
swiftly descending the hill.
“That is Jessie’s mother, Mrs. Agnes Remington,”
the doctor replied. “She’ll feel flattered with
your compliment.”
“I did not mean to flatter. I said what I thought.
She is handsome, beautiful, and so young, too. Was
that a gold bracelet which flashed so on her arm?”
The doctor presumed it was, though he had not
noticed. Gold bracelets were not new to him as they
were to Maddy, who continued:
“I wonder if I’ll ever wear a bracelet like that?”
“Would you like to?” the doctor asked, glancing
at the small white wrist, around which the dark calico
sleeve was closely buttoned, and thinking how much
prettier and modest-looking it was than Agnes’ half
bare arms, where the ornaments were flashing.
“Y-e-s,” came hesitatingly from Maddy, who had
a strong passion for jewelry. “I guess I would,
though grandpa classes all such things with the pomps
and vanities which I must renounce when I get to be
good.”
109“And when will that be?” the doctor asked.
Again Maddy sighed, as she replied, “I cannot tell.
I thought so much about it while I was sick, that is,
when I could think; but now I’m better, it goes away
from me some. I know it is wrong, but I cannot help
it. I’ve seen only a bit of pomp and vanity, but I
must say that I like what I have seen, and I wish to
see more. It’s very wicked, I know,” she kept on, as
she met the queer expression of the doctor’s face;
“and I know you think me so bad. You are good—a
Christian, I suppose.”
There was a strange light in the doctor’s eye as he
answered, half sadly, “No, Maddy, I am not what you
call a Christian. I have not renounced the pomps and
vanities yet.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” and Maddy’s eyes expressed
all the sorrow she professed to feel. “You ought to
be, now you are so old.”
The doctor colored crimson, and stopping his horse
under the dim shadow of a maple in a little hollow, he
said:
“I’m not so very old, Maddy; only twelve years
older than yourself; and Agnes’s husband was more
than twenty-five years her senior.”
The doctor did not know why he dragged that last
110in, when it had nothing whatever to do with their
conversation; but as the most trivial thing often leads
to great results, so from the pang caused by Maddy’s
thinking him so old, was born the first real consciousness
he had ever had that the little girl beside him
was very dear, and that the twelve years’ difference
between them might prove a most impassable gulf.
With this feeling, it was exceedingly painful for him
to hear Maddy’s sudden exclamation:
“Oh, oh! over twenty-five years—that’s dreadful!
She must be glad he’s dead. I could never marry a
man more than five years older than I am.”
“Not if you loved him, and he loved you very,
very dearly?” the doctor asked, his voice low and
tender in its tone.
Wholly unsuspicious of the wild storm beating in
his heart, Maddy untied her white sun-bonnet, and,
taking it in her lap, smoothed back her soft hair, saying
with a long breath: “Oh! I’m so hot;” and then,
as if just remembering his question, she replied:
“I shouldn’t love him—I couldn’t. Grandma is five
years younger than grandpa, mother was five years
younger than father, Mrs. Green is five years younger
than Mr. Green, and, oh! ever so many. You are
warm, too; ain’t you?” and she turned her innocent
111eyes full upon the doctor, who was wiping from his
lips the great drops of water, induced not so much by
heat as by the apparent hopelessness of the love he
now knew was growing in his heart for Maddy Clyde.
Recurring again to Agnes, Maddy said: “I wonder
why she married that old man. It is worse than if
you were to marry Jessie.”
“Money and position were the attractions, I imagine,”
the doctor said. “Agnes was poor, and
esteemed it a great honor to be made Mrs. Remington.”
“Poor, was she?” Maddy rejoined. “Then maybe
Mr. Guy will some day marry a poor girl.”
Again the doctor thought to tell her of Lucy
Atherstone, but he did not, and as he saw that Maddy
was growing tired and needed to be at home, he
turned his horse in the direction of the cottage.
“Perhaps you’ll sometimes change your mind
about people so much older, and if you do you’ll
remember our talk this morning,” he said, as he
drove up at last before the gate.
Oh, yes! Maddy would never forget that morning
or the nice ride they’d had. She had enjoyed it
so much, and she thanked him many times for his
kindness, as she stood waiting for him to drive away,
112feeling no tremor whatever when at parting he took
and held her hand, smoothing it gently, and telling
her it was growing fat and plump again. He was
a very nice doctor, much better than she had imagined,
she thought, as she went slowly to the house
and entered the neat kitchen, where her grandmother
sat shelling peas for dinner, and her grandfather in
his arm-chair was whispering over his weekly paper.
“Did you meet a grand lady in a carriage?”
grandma asked, as Maddy sat down beside her.
“Yes; and Dr. Holbrook said it was Mrs. Remington,
from Aikenside, Mr. Guy’s step-mother, and
that she was more than twenty-five years younger
than her husband—isn’t it dreadful! I thought so;
but the doctor didn’t seem to,” and in a perfectly artless
manner Maddy repeated much of the conversation
which had passed between the doctor and herself, appealing
to her grandma to know if she had not taken
the right side of the argument.
“Yes, child, you did,” and grandma’s hands lingered
among the light green peas in her pan, as if she
were thinking of an entirely foreign subject. “I
knows nothing about this Mrs. Remington, only that
she stared a good deal at the house as she went by,
even looking at us through a glass, and lifting her
113spotted veil after she got by. She may have been as
happy as a queen with her man, but as a general thing
these unequal matches don’t work, and had better not
be thought on. S’posin’ you should think you was in
love with somebody, and in a few years, when you got
older, be sick of him. It might do him a sight of
harm. That’s what spoilt your poor uncle Joseph,
who’s been in the hospital at Worcester goin’ on nine
years.”
“It was!” and Maddy’s face was all aglow with
the interest she always evinced whenever mention was
made of the one great living sorrow of her grandmother’s
life—the shattered intellect and isolation
from the world of her youngest brother, who, as she
said, had for nearly nine years been an inmate of a
mad-house.
“Tell me about it,” Maddy continued, bringing a
pillow, and lying down upon the faded lounge beneath
the window.
“There is no great to tell, only he was many years
younger than I. He’s only forty-one now, and was
several years older than the girl he wanted. Joseph
was smart and handsome, and a lawyer, and folks said
a sight too good for the girl, whose folks were just
nothing, but she had a pretty face, and her long curls
114bewitched him. She couldn’t have been older than
you when he first saw her, and she was only sixteen
when they got engaged. Joseph’s life was bound up
in her, he worshiped the very air she breathed, and
when she mittened him, it almost took his life. He
was too old for her, she said, and then right on top of
that we heard after a little that she married some big
bug, I never knew who, plenty old enough to be her
father. That settled it with Joseph; he went into a
kind of melancholy, grew worse and worse, till we put
him in the hospital, usin’ his little property to pay the
bill until it was all gone, and now he’s on charity, you
know, exceptin’ the little we do. That’s what ’tis
about your uncle Joseph, and I warn all young girls
not to think too much of nobody. They are bound to
get sick of ’em, and it makes dreadful work.”
Grandma had an object in telling this to Maddy,
for she was not blind to the nature of the doctor’s
interest in her child, and though it gratified her pride,
she felt that it must not be, both for his sake and
Maddy’s, so she told the sad story of uncle Joseph as a
warning to Maddy, who could scarcely be said to need
it. Still it made an impression on her, and all that
afternoon she was thinking of the unfortunate man,
whom she had seen but once, and that in his prison
115home, where she had been with her grandfather the
only time she had ever ridden in the cars. He had
taken her in his arms then, she remembered, and
called her his little Sarah. Perhaps that was the
name of his treacherous betrothed. And she asked
her grandmother if it were not so.
“Yes, Sarah Morris was her name, and her face
was handsome as a doll,” grandma replied; and, wondering
if she was as beautiful as Jessie, or Jessie’s
mother, Maddy went back to her reveries of the poor
maniac in the asylum, whom Sarah Morris had
wronged so cruelly.
CHAPTER VIII. SHADOWINGS OF WHAT WAS TO BE.
116
It was very pleasant at Aikenside that
afternoon, and the cool breeze blowing
from the miniature fish-pond in one corner
of the grounds, came stealing into the handsome
parlors, where Agnes Remington, in becoming toilet,
reclined languidly upon the sofa, bending her graceful
head to suit the height of Jessie, who was twining
some flowers among her curls, and occasionally appealing
to Guy to know “if it was not pretty.”
In his favorite seat in the pleasant bay-window,
opening into the garden, Guy was sitting, apparently
reading a book, though his eyes did not move very
rapidly down the page, for his thoughts were on some
other subject. When his pretty step-mother first
came to Aikenside, three months before, he had been
half sorry, for he knew just how his quiet would be
disturbed, but as the weeks went by, and he became
accustomed to Jessie’s childish prattle and frolicsome
117ways, while even Agnes herself was not a bad picture
for his handsome home, he began to feel how he
should miss them when they were gone, Jessie particularly,
who made so much sunshine wherever she
went, and who was very dear to the heart of the half
brother. He knew, too, that Agnes would rather stay
there, for her income did not warrant as luxurious a
home as he could give her, and by remaining at Aikenside
during the warmer season she could afford to pass
the winter in Boston, where her personal attractions
secured her quite as much attention as was good for
her. Had she been more agreeable to him he would
not have hesitated to offer her a home as long as she
chose to remain, but, as it was, he felt that Lucy
Atherstone would be much happier alone with him.
Lucy, however, was not coming yet, and until she did
come Agnes perhaps might stay. It certainly would
be better for Jessie, who could have a teacher in the
house, and it was upon these matters that he was
reflecting.
As if divining his thoughts Agnes said to him
rather abruptly:
“Guy, Ellen Laurie writes me that they are all
going to Saratoga for a time, and then to Newport,
118and she wishes I would join then. Do you think I can
afford it?”
“Oh, yes, that’s splendid, and I’ll stay here while
you are gone; I like Aikenside so much better than
Boston. Mamma can afford it, can’t she, Guy?” Jessie
exclaimed, dropping her flowers and springing upon
her brother’s knee.
Smoothing her bright hair and pinching her soft
cheek, Guy replied:
“That means, I suppose, that I can afford it, don’t
it? but I, too, was thinking just now about your
staying here, where you really do improve.”
Then turning to Agnes he made some inquiries as
to the plans proposed by the Lauries, ascertaining
that Agnes’s plan was that he should invite her to go
with him to Saratoga, or Newport, or both, and that
Jessie meantime should remain at Aikenside, just as
she wished to do.
Guy could not find much pleasure in escorting
Agnes to a fashionable watering-place, particularly as
he was expected to pay the bills; but he sometimes did
unselfish things, and as he had not been very gracious
to her on the occasion of her last visit to Aikenside,
he decided to martyr himself and go to Saratoga. But
who would care for Jessie? She must not be left
119wholly with the servants. A governess of some kind
must be provided, and he was about speaking of this
to Agnes, when the doctor was announced, and the
conversation turned into another channel. Agnes
Remington would not have confessed how much she
was interested in Dr. Holbrook. Indeed, only that
morning, in reply to a joking remark made to her by
Guy, she had petulantly exclaimed:
“The idea of my caring for him, except as a friend
and physician. Why, he must be younger than I am,
or at most about my age. A mere boy, as it were.”
And yet, in making her toilet that afternoon, she
had arranged every part of her dress with direct
reference to the “mere boy,” her heart beating faster
every time she remembered the white sun-bonnet and
the Scotch plaid shawl she had seen beside him when
driving that morning. Little Maddy Clyde would
hardly have credited the story had she been told that
the beautiful lady from Aikenside was positively
jealous of Dr. Holbrook’s attentions to herself; yet it
was so, and the jealousy was all the more bitter when she
remembered who Madeline was, and how startled that
aged couple of the red cottage would be, could they
know who she was. But they did not; she was quite
sure of that; and so she had ventured to pass their
120door, her heart throbbing with a strange sensation as
the old way-marks came in view, way-marks which she
remembered so well, and around which so many sad
memories were clustering. Agnes was not all bad.
Indeed, she was scarcely worse than most vain, selfish
fashionable women; and all that day, since her return
from riding, haunting, remorseful thoughts of the
long ago had been clinging to her, making her more
anxious to leave that neighborhood for a time at least,
and in scenes of gayety forget, if possible, that such
things as broken vows or broken hearts existed.
The arrival of the doctor dissipated her sadness in
a measure, and after greeting him with her usual
expressions of welcome, she said, half playfully, half
spitefully: “By the way, doctor, who was that old
lady, all bent up double in shawls and things, whom
you were taking out for an airing?”
Guy looked up quickly, wondering where Agnes
could have seen the doctor, who, conscious of a sudden
pang, answered naturally:
“That old lady, bent double and bundled in shawls,
was young Maddy Clyde, to whom I thought a short
ride might do good.”
“Oh, yes; that patient about whom Jessie has
gone mad. I am glad to have seen her.”
121There was unmistakable irony in her voice now,
and turning from her to Guy, the doctor continued:
“The old man was telling me to-day of your kindness
in saving his house from being sold. It was like
you, Guy; and I wish I, too, had the means to be
generous, for they are so very poor.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Jessie, who had stolen to the
doctor’s side, and lain her fat, bare arm upon his
shoulder, as if he had been Guy. “You might give
Maddy the doctor’s bill. I remember how mamma
cried, and said she never could pay papa’s bill when it
was sent in.”
“Jessie!” said Agnes and Guy, simultaneously,
while the doctor laughingly pulled one of her long,
black curls.
“Yes, I could do that. I have thought of it, but
they might not accept it, as they are proud as well as
poor.”
“Mr. Markham has no one to care for but his wife
and this Madeline, has he?” Agnes asked; and the
doctor replied:
“I did not suppose so until a few days since, when
I learned from a Mr. Green that Mrs. Markham’s
youngest and only brother has been an inmate of a
lunatic asylum for years; and that though they cannot
122pay his expenses, they do what they can toward
providing him with comforts.”
“What is a lunatic asylum, mother? What does
he mean?” Jessie asked; but it was the doctor, not
Agnes, who explained to the child what a lunatic asylum
was.
“Is insanity hereditary in this family?” Guy asked.
Agnes’s cheek was very white, though her face was
turned away, as the doctor answered, “I do not know;
I did not ask the cause. I only heard the fact that
such a man as Joseph Mortimer existed.”
For a moment there was silence in the room, and
then Guy told the doctor of what Agnes and himself
were speaking when he arrived.
“I suppose it’s of no use asking you to join us for
a week or so.”
“There was not,” the doctor said. “His patients
needed him and he must stay at home.”
“Doctor, how would this Maddy Clyde do to stay
here with Jessie while we are gone, partly as companion
and partly as her teacher?” was Guy’s next
question, which awoke Mrs. Agnes at once from her
reverie.
“Guy,” she exclaimed, “are you crazy? That
child Jessie’s governess! No, indeed! I shall have
123a teacher from Boston—one whose manners and style
are unexceptionable.”
Guy had a will of his own, and few could provoke
it into action as effectually as Agnes, who, in thus opposing
him, was working directly against herself.
Paying her no attention, except to bow in token that
he heard, Guy asked Jessie her opinion.
“Oh, it will be splendid! Can she come to-morrow?
I sha’n’t care how long you are gone if I can
have Maddy here, and doctor will come up every day,
will you not?” and the soft eyes looked up pleadingly
into the doctor’s face.
“It is not settled yet that Maddy comes,” the doctor
replied; adding, as an answer to Guy’s question:
“If Agnes were willing, I do not think you could do
better than secure Miss Clyde’s services. Two children
will thus be happy, for Maddy, as I have told
you, thinks Aikenside must be a little lower than Paradise.
I shall be happy to open negotiations, if you say
so.”
“I’ll ride down and let you know to-morrow,” Guy
said. “These domestic matters, where there is a difference
of opinion, are better discussed alone,” and
he turned good-humoredly toward Agnes, who knew
it was useless to oppose him then.
124But she did oppose him that night, after the doctor
had gone, taking at first the high stand that
sooner than have a country girl like Maddy Clyde associated
daily with her daughter, whether as teacher
or companion, she would give up Saratoga and stay at
home. Guy could not explain why it was that opposition
from Agnes always aroused all his powers of
antagonism. Yet so it was, and now he was as fully
determined that Maddy Clyde should come to Aikenside
as Agnes was that she should not. He knew, too,
how to attain his end without further altercation.
“Very well,” was his quiet reply, “you can remain
at home if you choose, of course. I had intended taking
you myself, wherever you wished to go; and not
only that, but I was about to ask how much was
needed for the necessary additions to your wardrobe,
but if you prefer remaining here to giving up a most
unfounded prejudice against a girl who never harmed
you, and whom Jessie already loves, you can do so;”
and Guy walked from the room, leaving Agnes first to
cry, then to pout, then to think it all over, and finally
to decide that going to Saratoga and Newport under
the protection of Guy was better than carrying out a
whim, which, after all, was nothing but a whim.
Accordingly, next morning, as Guy was in his library
125reading his papers, she went to him, and folding
her white hands upon his shoulder, said very prettily:
“I was real cross last night, and let my foolish
pride get the ascendency. But I have reconsidered the
matter, and am willing for this Miss Clyde to come,
provided you still think it best.”
Guy’s mustache hid the mischievous smile lurking
about his mouth, and he received the concession as
graciously as if he did not know perfectly the motive
which impelled it. As she had commenced being
amiable, she seemed determined to continue it, and
offered herself to write a note soliciting Maddy’s
services.
“As I am Jessie’s mother, it will be perfectly
proper for me to hire and manage her,” she said, and
as Guy acquiesced in this suggestion, she sat down at
the writing-desk, and commenced a very pleasantly-worded
note, in which Miss Clyde was informed that
she had been recommended as a suitable person with
whom to leave Jessie during the summer and part of
the autumn, and that she, Jessie’s mother, wrote to
ask if for the sum of one dollar per week she was willing
to come to Aikenside as governess, or waiting-maid.
“Or what?” Guy asked, as she read to him what
126she had written. “Maddy Clyde will not be waiting-maid
in this house, neither will she come for one dollar
per week, as you propose. I hire her myself. I
have taken a fancy to the girl. Write another note;
substitute companion for waiting-maid, and offer her
three dollars per week, instead of one.”
As long as Guy paid the bill, Agnes could not demur
to the price, although, remembering a time when
she had taught a district school for one dollar per
week and boarded ‘round besides, she thought three
dollars far too much. But Guy had commanded, and
she generally obeyed him, so she wrote another note,
which he approved, and, sealing it up, sent it by a
servant to Madeline.
CHAPTER IX. THE DECISION.
127
The reception of Agnes’s note produced quite
a commotion at the red cottage, where
various opinions were expressed as to the
prime mover of the plan; grandpa thinking that as
Mrs. Agnes wrote the note, and was most interested
in it, she of course had suggested it; grandma insisting
that it was Jessie’s doings, while Maddy, when she
said anything, agreed with her grandmother, though
away down in her heart was a half belief that Mr. Guy
himself had first thought of having her at Aikenside,
where she would rather go than to any other spot in
the wide world; to Aikenside, with its beautiful lawn
almost large enough to be called a park, with its
shaded paths and winding walks, its flowers and vines,
its fountains and statuary, its fish-pond and grove, its
airy rooms, its wide hall, its winding stairs, with banisters
of rosewood, its cupola at the top, from which
so many miles of hill and meadow land could be discerned,
128its bay-windows and long piazzas, its sweet-faced,
dark-haired Jessie, and its manly, noble Guy.
Only the image of Agnes, flashing in silk and diamonds,
was a flaw in the picture. From thoughts of
her Maddy had insensibly shrank, until she met her in
the carriage, and then received the note asking her
services. These events wrought in her a change, and
dread of Mrs. Agnes passed away. She should like
her, and she should be so happy at Aikenside, for of
course she was going, and she began to wish the doctor
would come, so as to tell her how long before she
would be strong enough to enter upon her duties as
teacher to little Jessie.
At first Grandpa Markham hesitated. It might do
Maddy a deal of hurt to go to Aikenside, he said;
her humble home would look mean to her after all
that finery, while the temptations to vanity and
ambition would be greater there than at home; but
Maddy put all his objections aside, and long before
the doctor came she had written to Mrs. Agnes that
she would go. The doctor could not understand why
it was that in Maddy’s home he did not think as well
of her going to Aikenside as he had done the evening
previous. She looked so bright, so pure, so artless,
sitting by her grandfather’s knee, that it seemed a pity
129to transplant her to another soil, while, hidden in his
heart, was a fear of what might be the effect of daily
intercourse with Guy. Still he said it was the best
thing for her to do, and laughingly remarked that it
was far better than teaching the district school; and
then he asked if she would ride again that day, but
to this Mrs. Markham objected. It was too soon, she
said, Maddy had hardly recovered from yesterday’s
fatigue—suggesting that as the doctor was desirous of
doing good to his convalescent patients, he should
take poor old deaf Mary Barnes, who complained that
he staid so long with the child at “Gran’ther Markham’s”
as to have but a moment to spare for her.
Instantly the eyes of Mrs. Markham and the doctor
met, the latter feeling very uncomfortable, while the
former was confirmed in the suspicion raised by what
Maddy told her the day before.
It was the doctor who carried Maddy’s answer to
Agnes, the doctor who made all the succeeding arrangements,
deciding that Maddy would not be wholly
strong until the very day fixed upon by Agnes for her
departure for Saratoga. For this Guy was sorry. It
would have been an easy matter for him to have ridden
down to the cottage and seen the girl in whom he
was beginning to feel so much interested that in his
130last letter to Lucy he had mentioned her as about to
become his sister’s governess; but he did not care to
see her there. It seemed to him that the surroundings
of the slanting-roofed house did not belong to her,
and he would rather meet her in his own more luxurious
home. But the doctor’s word was law, and so,
on the first day of August he followed Agnes and her
three huge traveling trunks to the carriage, and was
driven from the house to which Maddy was coming
that afternoon.
CHAPTER X. AT AIKENSIDE.
131
It was a long, tiresome ride for grandpa,
from Honedale to Aikenside, and he accepted
thankfully the doctor’s offer to take
Maddy there himself. With this arrangement Maddy
was well pleased, as it would thus afford her the opportunity
she had so much desired, of talking with the
doctor about his bill, and asking him to wait until she
had earned enough to pay it.
To the aged couple, parting for the first time with
their darling, the day was very sad; but they would
not intrude their grief upon the young girl looking so
eagerly forward to the new life opening before her;
only grandpa’s voice faltered a little when, in the
morning prayer, he commended his child to God, asking
that she might be kept from temptation, and that
the new sights and scenes to which she was going
might not beget in her a love of the world’s vanities,
or a disgust for her old home; but that she might
132come back to it the same loving, happy child as she
was then, and never be ashamed of the parents to
whom she was so dear. There was an answering sob
from the chair where Maddy knelt, and after the
devotions were ended, she wound her arm around her
grandfather’s neck, and parting his silvery locks, said
to him earnestly:
“Grandpa, do you think I could ever be ashamed
of you and grandma?”
“I hope not, darling; it would break our hearts;
but finery and things is mighty apt to set folks up,
and after you’ve walked a spell on them velvet carpets,
you’ll no doubt think your feet make a big noise on
our bare kitchen floor.”
“That may be, but I shan’t be ashamed of you.
No, not if I were Mrs. Guy Remington herself.” And
Maddy emphasized her words with a kiss, as she
thought how nice it would be, provided she were a
widow, to be Mrs. Guy Remington, and have her
grandparents live at Aikenside with her.
“But, pshaw! I’ll never be Mrs. Anybody; and if
I am, I’ll have to have a husband, which would be such
a bother!” was her next mental comment, as, leaving
her grandfather, she went to help her grandmother
with the breakfast dishes, wondering when she would
133wipe those blue cups again, and how she should probably
feel when she did.
Quickly the morning passed, and just as the clock
struck two the doctor’s buggy appeared over the hill.
Up to this moment Maddy had only been happy in
anticipation; but when, with her shawl and bonnet on,
she stood waiting while the doctor fastened her little
trunk, and when she saw a tear on the wrinkled faces
of both her grandparents, her fortitude gave way; and
mid a storm of sobs she said her good-byes and received
her grandfather’s blessing.
It was very pleasant that afternoon, for the summer
breeze was blowing cool across the fields, where
the laborers were busy; and with the elasticity of
youth, Maddy’s tears stopped flowing, but not until
the dear old home had disappeared, and she was some
distance on the road to Aikenside.
“I wonder how I shall like Mrs. Remington and
Mr. Guy?” was the first remark she made.
“You’ll not see them immediately. They left this
morning for Saratoga,” the doctor replied.
“Left! Mr. Guy gone?” Maddy repeated, in a disappointed
tone.
“Are you very sorry?” the doctor asked, and
Maddy replied:
134“I did want to see him once; you know I never
have.”
It would be such a surprise to find that Guy was no
other than the terrible inspector, that he would not
undeceive her, the doctor thought; and so he relapsed
into a thoughtful mood, from which Maddy roused
him by broaching the subject of the unpaid bill, asking
if he’d please not trouble grandpa, but wait until she
could pay it.
“Perhaps it’s wrong asking it when you were so
good, but if you will only take me for payment,” and
Maddy’s soft brown eyes were lifted to his face.
“Yes, Maddy, I’ll take you for payment,” the
doctor said, smiling, half seriously, as his eyes rested
fondly upon her.
Maddy did not understand him, but began to calculate
out loud how long it would take to earn the
money. She’d heard people say that the doctor
charged a dollar a visit to Honedale, and he’d been so
many, many times, that it would take a great many
weeks to pay him; besides, there was the debt to Mr.
Guy. She wanted to help pay that, but did not see
how she could, unless he waited too. Did the doctor
think he would? It seemed terrible to the doctor
that one so young as Maddy should be harassed with
135the payment of debts, and he felt a most intense desire
for the right to shield her from all such care, but he
must not speak of it then. She was too young, and
he would rather she should remain a little longer
an artless child, confiding all her troubles to him as if
he had been her brother.
“There’s Aikenside,” he said at last, and it was
not long before they passed through the gate, guarded
by the great bronze lions, and struck into the graveled
road leading to the house.
“It’s grander, finer, than I ever dreamed. Oh! if
I could some time have just such a home! and, doctor,
look! What does make that water go up in the
air so? Is it what they call a fountain?”
In her excitement Maddy had risen, and with one
band resting on the doctor’s shoulder, was looking
round her eagerly. Guy Remington would have
laughed, and been gratified, too, could he have heard
the enthusiastic praises heaped upon his home by the
little school-girl as she drove up to his door. But Guy
was away in the dusty cars, and only Jessie stood on
the piazza to receive her teacher. There were warm
words of welcome, kisses and hugs; and then Jessie
led her friend to the chamber she was to occupy.
“Mother wanted you to sleep the other side of the
136house, but brother Guy said no, you should have a
pleasant room; and when Guy says a thing, it’s so.
It’s nice in here, and close to me. See, I’m right here,”
and Jessie opened a door leading directly to her own
sleeping-room. “Here’s one trunk,” she continued,
as a servant brought up and set down, a little contemptuously,
the small hair-cloth box containing Maddy’s
wardrobe. “Here’s one: where’s the rest?” and
she was flying after Tom, when Muddy stopped her,
saying:
“I have but one;—that’s all.”
“Only that little, teenty thing? How funny!
Why, mamma carried three most as big as my bed to
Saratoga. You can’t have many dresses. What are
you going to wear to dinner?”
“I’ve been to dinner.” And Maddy looked up in
some surprise.
“You have! We never have it till five, when Guy
is at home; but now they are gone, Mrs. Noah says
we will have it at one, as folks ought to do. To-day
I coaxed her to wait till you came, and the table is all
set out so nicely for two. Can you carve, and do you
like green turtle soup?”
Maddy was bewildered, but managed to reply that
she could not carve, that she never saw any green
137turtle soup, and that she supposed she should wear to
dinner the dress she had on.
“Why, we always change, even Mrs. Noah,” Jessie
exclaimed, bending over the open trunk, and examining
its contents.
Two calicoes, a blue muslin, a gingham, and a delaine,
beside the one she had on—that was the sum
total of Maddy’s wardrobe, and Jessie glanced at it a
little ruefully as Maddy carefully shook out the nicely-folded
dresses and laid them upon the bed. Here Mrs.
Noah was heard calling Jessie, who ran away, leaving
Maddy alone for a moment.
Maddy had seen the look Jessie gave the dresses,
and for the first time there dawned upon her mind the
possibility that her plain apparel, and ignorance of the
ways of Aikenside, might be to her the cause of much
mortification.
“And grandma said they were so nice, too, and
did them up so carefully,” she said, her lip beginning
to quiver, and her eyes filling with tears,
thoughts of home came rushing over her.
She could not force them back, and laying her
head upon the top of the despised hair trunk, she
sobbed aloud. Guy Remington’s private room was in
the hall, and as the doctor knew a book was to have
138been left there for him, he took the liberty of getting
it; passing Maddy’s door he heard the low sound of
weeping, and looking in, saw her where she sat or
rather knelt upon the floor.
“Homesick so soon?” he said, advancing to her
side, and then, amid a torrent of tears, the whole came
out.
Maddy never could do as they did there, and
everybody would laugh at her so for an awkward
thing; she never knew that folks ate dinner at five
instead of twelve—she should surely starve to death;
she couldn’t carve—she could not eat mud-turtle soup,
and she did not know which dress to wear for dinner—would
the doctor tell her? There they were, and she
pointed to the bed, only five, and she knew Jessie
thought it so mean.
Such was the substance of Maddy’s passionate outpouring
of her griefs to the highly-perplexed doctor,
who, after quieting her somewhat, ascertained that the
greatest present trouble was the deciding what dress
was suitable to the occasion. The doctor had never
made dress his study, but as it happened he liked
blue, and so suggested it, as the one most likely to be
becoming.
“That!” and Maddy looked confounded. “Why
139grandma never lets me wear that, except Sunday;
that’s my very best dress.”
“Poor child; I’m not sure it was right for you to
come here where the life is so different from the quiet,
unpretentious one you have led,” the doctor thought,
but he merely said, “it’s my impression they wear
their best dresses here all the time.”
“But what shall I do when that’s worn out! Oh,
dear, dear, I wish I had not come!” and another impetuous
fit of weeping ensued, in the midst of which
Jessie came back, greatly disturbed on Maddy’s
account, and asking, eagerly, what was the matter.
Very adroitly the doctor managed to draw Jessie
aside, while as well as he was able he gave her a few
hints with regard to her intercourse with Maddy, and
Jessie, who seemed intuitively to understand him, went
back to the weeping girl, soothing her much as a little
mother would have soothed her child. They would
have such nice times, when Maddy got used to their
ways, which would not take long, and nobody would
laugh at her, she said, when Maddy expressed her
fears on that point. “You are too pretty even if you
do make mistakes!” and then she went into ecstacies
over the blue muslin, which was becoming to Maddy
and greatly enhanced her girlish beauty. The tear-stains
140were all washed away, Jessie using very freely
her mother’s eau-de-cologne, and making Maddy’s
cheeks very red with rubbing, the nut-brown hair was
brushed until it shone like satin, a little narrow band
of black velvet ribbon was pinned about Maddy’s
neck, and then she was ready for that terrible ordeal,
her first dinner at Aikenside. The doctor was going
to stay, and this revived her somewhat.
“You must come to the housekeeper’s room and
see her first,” Jessie said, and with a beating heart and
brain bewildered by the elegant furniture which met
her at every turn, Maddy followed to where the
dreaded Mrs. Noah, in rustling black silk and a thread
lace collar, sat sewing, and greatly enjoying the leisure
she had in her master’s absence.
Mrs. Noah knew who Maddy was, and remembered
that the old man had said she would not disgrace
a drawing-room as fine as that at Aikenside.
She had discovered, too, that Mrs. Agnes was opposed
to her coming, and that only Guy’s determined will
had brought her there; and this, if nothing else, had
disposed her to feel kindly toward the little governess.
She had supposed her rather pretty, but was not prepared
to find her what she was. Maddy’s was a singular
type of beauty—a beauty untarnished by any
141selfish, uncharitable, or suspicious feeling. Clear and
truthful as a mirror, her brown eyes looked into Mrs.
Noah’s, while her low courtesy, so full of deference,
found its way straight to that motherly heart.
“I am glad to see you, Miss Clyde,” she said;
“very glad.”
Maddy’s lip quivered a little and her voice shook
as she replied:
“Please call me Maddy. They do at home, and I
sha’n’t be quite so—so——”
She could not say “homesick,” lest she should
break out again into a fit of crying, but Mrs. Noah
understood her, and remembering her own experience
when first she went from home, she involuntarily
stooped to kiss the pure, white forehead of the girl,
who henceforth was sure of one champion, at least, at
Aikenside.
The dinner was a success, so far as Maddy was
concerned. Not a single mistake did she make,
though her cheeks burned painfully as she felt the
eyes of the polite waiter fixed so often upon her face,
and fancied he might be laughing at her. But he was
not, and thanks to the kind-hearted Guy, he thought
of her only with respect, as one who was his superior
and must be treated accordingly. Knowing how different
142everything was at Aikenside from that to
which she had been accustomed, Guy, with the
thoughtfulness natural to him, had taken the precaution
of speaking to each of the servants concerning
Miss Clyde, Jessie’s teacher. As he could not be there
himself when she first came, it would devolve upon
them more or less to make it pleasant for her by kind,
civil attentions, he said, hinting at the dire displeasure
sure to fall on any one who should be guilty of a misdemeanor
in that direction. To Paul, the coachman,
he had been particular in his charges, telling him who
Maddy was, and arguing that from the insolence
once given to the grandfather the offender was bound
to be more polite to the grandchild. The carriage
was to be at her and Jessie’s command, and Paul was
never to refuse a reasonable request to drive the
young ladies when and where they wished to go, while
a pretty little black pony, recently broken to the
saddle for Agnes, was to be at Miss Clyde’s service,
if she chose to have it. As Guy’s slightest wish was
always obeyed, Maddy’s chances for happiness were
not small, notwithstanding that she felt so desolate
and lonely when the doctor left her, and watched him
with a swelling heart until he was lost to view in the
deepening twilight.
143Feeling that she must be homesick, Mrs. Noah suggested
that she try the fine piano in the little music
room.
“Maybe you can’t play, but you can drum ‘Days
of Absence,’ as most girls do,” and opening the piano
she bade Maddy “thump as long as she liked.”
Music was a delight to Maddy, who coveted
nothing so much as a knowledge of it, and sitting
down upon the stool, she touched the soft-toned instrument,
ascertaining by her ear several sweet chords,
and greatly astonishing Jessie, who wondered at her
skill. Twice each week a teacher came up from
Devonshire to give lessons to Jessie, but as yet she
could only play one scale and a few simple bars.
These she attempted to teach to Maddy, who caught
at them so quickly and executed them so well that
Jessie was delighted. Maddy ought to take lessons,
she said, and some time during the next day she took
to Mrs. Noah a letter which she had written to Guy.
After going into ecstasies over Maddy, saying she was
the nicest kind of a girl, that she prayed in the morning
as well as at night, and looked so sweet in blue,
she asked if she couldn’t take music lessons too,
advancing many reasons why she should, one of which
144was that she could play now a great deal better than
herself.
It was several days before an answer came to this
letter, and when it did it brought Guy’s consent for
Maddy to take lessons, together with a note for Mr.
Simons, requesting him to consider Miss Clyde his
pupil on the same terms as Jessie.
Though greatly pleased with Aikenside, and
greatly attached to Jessie, Maddy had had many hours
of loneliness when her heart was back in the humble
cottage where she knew they were missing her so
much, but now a new world was suddenly opened
before her, and the homesickness all disappeared. It
had been arranged with Mrs. Noah, by Agnes, that
Jessie should only study for two hours each day, consequently
Maddy had nearly all the time to herself,
and she improved it well, making so rapid progress
that Simons looked on amazed, declaring her case to
be without a parallel, while Jessie was left far behind.
Indeed, after a short time Maddy might have been her
teacher, and was of much service to her in practicing
her lessons.
Meanwhile, the doctor came often to Aikenside,
praising Maddy’s progress in music, and though he did
not know a single note, compelling himself to listen
145while with childish satisfaction she played him her last
lesson. She was very happy now at Aikenside, where
all were so kind to her, and half wished that the family
would always remain as it was then, that Agnes
and Guy would not come home, for with their coming
she felt there would be a change. It was nearly time
now to expect them. Indeed, Guy had written on one
Saturday, that they should probably be home the next,
and during the ensuing week Aikenside presented that
most uncomfortable phase of a house being cleaned.
Everything must be in order for Mr. Guy, Mrs. Noah
said, taking more pains with his rooms than with the
remaining portion of the building. Guy was her idol;
nothing was too good for him, few things quite good
enough, and she said so much in his praise that Maddy
began to shrink from meeting him. What would he
think of her? Perhaps he might not notice her in the
least, and that would be terrible. But, no, a man as
kind as he had shown himself to her, would at least pay
her some attention, and so at last she began to anticipate
his coming home, wondering what their first
meeting would be, what she should say to him, and
what he would think of her.
CHAPTER XI. GUY AT HOME.
146
Saturday came at last, a balmy September
day, when all nature seemed conspiring
to welcome the travelers for whom so extensive
preparations had been made at Aikenside.
They were expected at about six in the afternoon, and
just before that hour the doctor rode up to be in
readiness to meet them. In the dining-room the table
was set as Maddy had never seen it set before, making,
with its silver, its china, and cut-glass, a glittering display.
There was Guy’s seat as carver, with Agnes at
the urn, while Maddy felt sure that the two plates
between Agnes and Guy were intended for Jessie and
herself, the doctor occupying the other side. Jessie
would sit next to her mother, which would leave her
next to Guy, where he could see every movement she
made. Would he think her awkward, or would he, as
he hoped, be so much absorbed with the doctor as not
to notice her? Suppose she should drop her fork, or
147upset one of those queer looking goblets on the sideboard,
which looked more like bowls than anything
else. It would be terrible, and Maddy’s cheeks tingled
at the very thought of such a catastrophe. Were
they really goblets, those funny colored things, and if
they were not, what were they? Summoning all her
courage, she asked the doctor, her prime counselor,
and learned that they were the finger-glasses, of which
she had read, but which she had never seen before.
“Oh, must I use them?” she asked, in so evident
distress that the doctor could not forbear a laugh as
he told her it was not of the slightest consequence
whether she used them or not, advising her to watch
Mrs. Agnes, who was au fait in all such matters.
Six o’clock came, but no travelers. Then an hour
went by, and there came a telegram that the cars had
run off the track, and Guy would not probably arrive
until late in the night, if indeed he did till morning.
Greatly disappointed, the doctor after dinner took his
leave, telling the girls they better not sit up. Consequently,
at a late hour they both retired, sleeping so
soundly as not to hear the noise outside the house; the
banging of doors, the setting down of trunks, the
tramp of feet, Mrs. Noah’s words of welcome, one
pleasant voice which responded, and another more
148impatient one which sounded as if its owner were
tired and cross.
Agnes and Guy had come. As a whole, Agnes’s
season at Saratoga had been rather disagreeable.
Guy, it is true, had been exceedingly kind. She had
been flattered by brainless fops. She had heard herself
called “that beautiful Mrs. Remington,” and
“that charming young widow,” but no serious attentions
had been paid, no millionaire had asked to be her
second husband. If there had, she would have said
yes, for Agnes was not averse to changing her state of
widowhood. She liked the doctor, but if he did not
propose, and some one else did, she should accept that
other one, of course. This was her intention when she
left Aikenside, and when she came back it was with
the determination to raise the siege at once, and compel
the doctor to surrender. She knew he was not
wealthy as she could wish, but his family was good,
and as she positively liked him, she was prepared to
waive the matter of money. In this state of mind it
is not surprising that on the morning of her return
home she should listen with a troubled mind to Jessie’s
rather exaggerated account of the number of times the
doctor had been there, and the nice things he had said
to her and Maddy.
149“He has visited us ever so much, staying ever so
long. I know Maddy likes him; I do, anyway,”
Jessie said, never dreaming of the passion she was
exciting, jealousy of Maddy, hatred of Maddy, and a
desire to be revenged on a girl whom Dr. Holbrook
visited “ever so much.”
What was she that he should care for her? A
mere nothing—a child, whom Guy had taken up.
Pity there was a Lucy Atherstone in the way of his
making her mistress of Aikenside. It would be a
pretty romance, Guy Remington and Grandpa Markham’s
grandchild. Agnes was nervous and tired, and
this helped to increase her anger toward the innocent
girl. She would take immediate measures, she thought,
to put the upstart down, and the sight of Flora laying
the cloth for breakfast suggested to her the first step
in teaching Maddy her place.
“Flora,” she said, “I see you are arranging the
table for four. Have we company?”
“Why, no, ma’am; there’s Mr. Guy, yourself, Miss
Jessie, and Miss Clyde,” was Flora’s reply, while
Agnes continued haughtily, “Remove Miss Clyde’s
plate. No one allows their governess to eat with
them.”
“But, ma’am,” and Flora hesitated, “she’s very
150pretty and ladylike, and young; she has always eaten
with Miss Jessie and Dr. Holbrook when he was
here. He treats her as if she was as good as anybody.”
In her eagerness to serve Maddy and save her from
insult, Flora was growing bold, but she only hurt the
cause by mentioning the doctor. Agnes was determined
now, and she replied:
“It was quite right when we were gone, but it is
different now, and Mr. Remington, I am sure, will not
suffer it.”
“May I ask him,” Flora persisted, her hand still on
the plate.
“No,” Agnes would attend to that, and also see
Miss Clyde. All Flora had to do was to remove the
plate, which she finally did, muttering to herself.
“Such airs! but I know Mr. Guy won’t stand it.”
Meantime, Maddy had put on her prettiest delaine,
tied her little dainty white apron, Mrs. Noah’s gift,
and with the feeling that she was looking unusually
well, started for the parlor to meet her employer, Mrs.
Agnes. Jessie had gone in quest of her brother, and
thus Agnes was alone when Maddy Clyde first presented
herself before her. She had not expected to
find Maddy so pretty, and for a moment the hot blood
151crimsoned her cheek, while her heart throbbed wildly
beneath the rich morning-dress. Doctor Holbrook
had cause for being attracted by that fresh, bright
face, she thought, and so she steeled herself against
the better impulses of her nature, impulses which
pleaded that for the sake of the past she should be
kind to Maddy Clyde.
“Ah, good morning. You are Jessie’s governess,
I presume,” she said, bowing distantly, and pretending
not to notice the hand which Maddy involuntarily
extended toward her. “Jessie speaks well of you, and
I am very glad you suit her. You have had a pleasant
time, I trust?”
Her voice was so cold and her manner so distant,
that Maddy’s eyes for an instant filled with tears, but
she answered civilly that she had been very happy,
and everybody was very kind. It was harder work to
put down Maddy Clyde than Agnes had expected, and
after a little further conversation there ensued a
silence, which neither was inclined to break. At last,
summoning all her courage, Agnes began:
“Excuse me, Miss Clyde, but your own good sense,
of which I am sure you have an abundance, must tell
you that now Mr. Remington and myself are at home,
your intercourse with our family must be rather limited—that
152is—ahem—that is, neither Mr. Remington
nor myself are accustomed to having our governess
very much with us. I suppose you have had the
range of the parlors, sitting there when you liked, and
all this was perfectly proper. Mind, I am finding no
fault with you. It is all quite right,” she continued,
as she saw the strange look of terror and surprise
visible on Maddy’s face. “The past is right, but in
future it will be a little different. I am willing to
accord to a governess all the privileges possible.
They are human as well as myself, but society makes
a difference. Don’t you know it does?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know. Oh, pray tell me what
you mean, what I am to do!” Maddy gasped her face
white as ashes, and her eyes wearing as yet only a
scared, uncertain look.
With little, graceful tosses of the head, which set
in motion every one of the brown curls, Mrs. Agnes
replied:
“You are not, of course, to go to Mr. Remington.
It is my matter, and does not concern him. What I
wish is this: You are to come to the parlor only
when invited, and are not to intrude upon us at any
time, particularly when company is here, such as—well,
such as Dr. Holbrook, if you please. As you
153cannot be with Jessie all the while, you will, when
your duties as governess are over, sit in your own
room, or the school-room, or walk in the back yard,
just as the higher servants do—such as Mrs. Noah and
the seamstress, Sarah. Occasionally we shall have
you in to dine with us, but usually you will take your
meals with Mrs. Noah and Sarah. By following these
directions you will, I think, give entire satisfaction.”
When Mrs. Agnes had finished, Maddy began to
understand her position, and into her white face the
hot blood poured indignantly. Wholly inexperienced,
she had never dreamed that a governess was not
worthy to sit at the same table with her employer,
that she must never enter the parlors unbidden, or
intrude herself in any way, and her cheeks burned
at the degradation, and for an instant she felt like
defying the proud woman to her face. But the angry
words trembling on her tongue were repressed as she
remembered her grandfather’s teachings; and with a
bow as haughty as any Mrs. Agnes could have made,
and a look on her face which could not easily be forgotten,
she left the room, and in a kind of stunned
bewilderment sought the garden, where she could,
unseen, give way to her feelings.
Once alone, the torrent burst forth, and burying
154her face in the soft grass, she wept bitterly, never
hearing the step coming near, and not at first heeding
the voice which asked what was the matter. Guy
Remington, too, had come out into the garden, and
accidentally wandering that way, stumbled upon the
little figure crying in the grass. He knew it was
Maddy, and greatly surprised to find her thus, asked
what was the matter. Then, as she did not hear him,
he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder, compelling
her to look up. In all her imaginings of Guy, she had
never associated him with the man who had so puzzled
and confused her, and now she did not for a time suspect
the truth. She only thought the stranger a guest at
Aikenside; some one come with Guy; and her degradation
seemed greater than before. She was not surprised
when he called her by name; of course he
remembered her, just as she did him; but she did wonder
a little what Mrs. Agnes would say, could she
know how kindly he spoke to her as he lifted her from
the grass and led her to a rustic seat at no great distance
from them.
“Now, tell me why you are crying so?” he said,
brushing from her apron the spot of dirt which had
settled upon it. “Are you homesick?” he continued,
and then Maddy burst out crying harder than before.
155She forgot that he was a stranger, forgot everything
except that he sympathized with her.
“Oh, sir,” she sobbed, “I was so happy here till
they came home, Mrs. Remington and Mr. Guy. I
never thought it was a disgrace to be a governess;
never heard it was so considered, or that I was not
good enough to sit with them and eat with them till
she told me so. Oh, dear, dear!” and choked with
tears, Maddy stopped a moment to take breath.
She did not look up at the young man beside her,
and it was well she did not, for the dark expression of
his face would have frightened her. Half guessing
the truth, and impatient to hear more, he said to her:
“Go on!” so sternly, that she started, and replied:
“I know you are angry with me and I ought not to
have told you.”
“I am not angry—not at you, at least—go on,” was
Guy’s reply, and Maddy continued:
“She told me that now they had come home it
would be different, that only when invited must I
come to the parlor, or anywhere, but must stay in the
servants’ part, and eat with Mrs. Noah and Sarah. I’d
just as soon do that. I am no better than they, only,
only—the way she told me made me feel so mean, as
if I was not anybody, when I am,” and here Maddy’s
156pride began to rise. “I’m just as good as she, if
grandpa is poor, and I won’t stay here to be treated
like a nigger by her and Mr. Guy. I liked him so
much too, because he was kind to grandpa and to me
when I was sick. Yes, I did like him so much.”
“And how is it now?” Guy asked, wondering who
in the world she thought he was. “How is it now?”
“I suppose it’s wicked to feel such things on Sunday,
but, somehow, what she said keeps making me so
bad that I know I hate her, and I guess I hate Mr.
Guy!”
This was Maddy’s answer, spoken deliberately,
while she looked up at the young man, who with a
comical expression about his mouth, answered her:
“I am Mr. Guy.”
“You, you! Oh, I can’t bear it! I shall die!”
and Maddy sprang up as quickly as if feeling an electric
shock.
But Guy’s arm was interposed to stop her, and held
her back, while he asked where she was going.
“Anywhere, out of sight, where you can never see
me again,” Maddy sobbed vehemently. “It is bad
enough to have you think me a fool as you did once;
but now, oh! what do you think of me?”
“Nothing bad, I assure you,” Guy said, still holding
157her wrist to keep her there. “I supposed you
knew who I was, but as you did not, I forgive you for
hating me so cordially. If you thought I sanctioned
what Mrs. Remington has said to you, you had cause
to dislike me, but Miss Clyde, I do not, and this is the
first intimation I have had that you were to be treated
other than as a lady. I am master of Aikenside, not
Mrs. Agnes, who shall be made to understand it.”
“Oh, please don’t quarrel about me. Let me go
home, and then all will be well,” Maddy cried, feeling
at that moment more averse to leaving Aikenside than
she could have thought it possible.
“We shall not quarrel, but I shall have my way;
meanwhile go to your room, and stay there until told
that I have sent for you.”
They went to the house together, but separated in
the hall; Maddy going to her room, while Guy sought
Mrs. Agnes. The moment she saw his face she knew
a storm was coming, but was not prepared for the
biting sarcasm and bitter reproaches heaped upon her
by one who, when roused, was a perfect hurricane.
“Perhaps you have forgotten that you were once a
school teacher yourself,” he said, “and before that
time mercy knows what you were—a hired girl, perhaps;
158your present airs would seem to warrant as
much!”
Guy was in a sad passion by this time, and failed
to note the effect his last words had on Agnes, who
turned livid with rage and terror; but smothering
down her wrath, she said, beseechingly:
“Pray, Guy, do not be so angry; I know I am
foolish about some things, and proud people who
‘come up’ always are, I guess; I know that marrying
your father made me what I am, but everybody does
not know it, and it is not necessary they should. I
don’t remember exactly what I did say to this Clyde
girl, but I thought it would be pleasanter for you,
pleasanter for us all, not to have her always round; it
seems she has presided at the table when Dr. Holbrook
was here to tea, and even you can’t think that quite
right.”
“I don’t know why,” and at mention of Dr. Holbrook
Guy’s temper burst out again. “Agnes, you
can’t deceive me; I know the secret of your abominable
treatment of Maddy Clyde is jealousy.”
“Guy—jealousy! I jealous of that child?” and
Agnes’s voice was expressive of the utmost consternation.
“Yes, jealous of that child; you think that
159because the doctor has been kind to her, perhaps
he wants her sometime for his wife. I hope he does;
I mean to help it on; I’ll tell him to marry her, and if
he don’t, I’ll almost marry her myself!” and Guy
paced up and down the parlor, chafing and foaming
like a young lion.
Agnes was conquered, and quite as much bewildered
as Maddy had been she heard only in part how
Maddy Clyde was henceforth to be treated.
“Yes, yes,” she gasped at last, as Guy talked on,
“stop now, for mercy’s sake, and I’ll do anything, only
not this morning, my head aches so I cannot go to the
breakfast table; I must be excused,” and holding her
temples, which were throbbing with pain, induced by
strong excitement, Agnes hurried to her own room
and threw herself upon the bed, angry, mortified, and
subdued.
The breakfast bell had rung twice while Guy was
holding that interview with Agnes, and at last Mrs.
Noah came up herself to learn the cause of the delay;
standing in the hall she heard a part of what was
transpiring in the parlor. Mrs. Noah was proud and
jealous of her master’s dignity, and once or twice the
thought had crossed her mind that perhaps when he
came home, Maddy would be treated more as some
160governesses were treated by their employers, but to
have Agnes take the matter up was quite a different
thing, and Mrs. Noah smiled with grim satisfaction as
she heard Guy issuing orders as to how Miss Clyde
should be treated. Standing back to let Agnes pass,
she waited a moment, and then, as if she had just come
up, presented herself before Guy, asking if he were
ready for breakfast.
“Yes, call Miss Clyde; tell her I sent for her,”
was Guy’s answer, and Mrs. Noah repaired to Maddy’s
room, finding her still sobbing bitterly.
“I cannot go down,” she said; “my face is all
stains, and it’s so dreadful, happening on Sunday, too.
What would grandpa say?”
“You can wash off the stains. Come,” Mrs. Noah
said, pouring water into the bowl, and bidding Maddy
hurry, “as Mr. Guy was waiting breakfast for her.”
“But I am not to eat with them,” Maddy began,
when Mrs. Noah stopped her by explaining that Guy
ruled that house, and Agnes had been completely
routed.
This did not quiet Maddy particularly, and her
heart beat painfully as she descended to the parlor,
where Guy was walking up and down.
“Come, Miss Clyde, Jessie is nearly famished,” he
161said, pleasantly, as Maddy appeared, and without the
slightest reference to what had passed he drew
Maddy’s arm within his own, and giving a hand to
Jessie, who had just come in, he went to the breakfast
room, where Maddy was told to preside, as Mrs. Remington
had a headache.
Guy watched her closely without seeming to do so,
mentally deciding that she was neither vulgar nor
awkward. On the contrary, he thought her very
pretty, and very graceful, for one so unaccustomed to
society. Nothing was said to Agnes, who kept her
room the entire day, and did not join the family until
evening, when Guy sat upon the piazza with Jessie in
his lap, while Maddy was not very far away. At first
there was much constraint between Agnes and Maddy,
but with Guy to manage, it soon wore away, and
Agnes felt herself exceedingly amiable when she
reflected how gracious she had been to the young
girl.
But Maddy could not so soon forget. All through
the day the conviction had been settling upon her that
she could not stay at Aikenside, and on the following
morning, just after breakfast was over, she summoned
courage to ask Mr. Guy if she might talk with him.
Leading the way to his library, he bade her sit down,
162while he took the chair opposite, and then waited for
her to commence.
Maddy was afraid of Guy. He did not seem like
Dr. Holbrook. He was haughtier in his manner, while
his rather elaborate style of dress, and polished manners,
gave him, in her estimation, a kind of superiority
over all the men she had ever met. Besides that, she
remembered how his dark eyes had flashed when she
told him what she did the previous day, and also that
she had said to his face that she hated him. She
could not bear to leave a bad impression on his mind,
so the first words she said to him were:
“Mr. Remington, I can’t stay here after all that
has happened. It would not be pleasant for me or
Mrs. Remington, so I am going home, but I want you
to forget what I said about hating you yesterday. I
did not then know who you were. I don’t hate you.
I like you, and I wish you to like me.”
She did not look at him, for her eyelids were cast
down, and her lashes were wet with the tears she could
scarcely keep from shedding. Guy had never known
much about girls of Maddy’s age, and there was something
extremely fascinating in the artless simplicity of
this half-child, half-woman, sitting there before him,
and asking him so demurely to like her. She was very
163pretty, he thought, and would make a beautiful
woman. Then, as he remembered his avowed intention
of urging the doctor to make her his wife some
day, the idea flashed upon him that it would be very
generous, very magnanimous in him to educate her
expressly for the doctor, and though he hardly seemed
to wait at all ere replying to Maddy, he had in the
brief interval formed a skeleton plan, and seen it in all
its bearings and triumphal result.
“I am much obliged for your liking me,” he said,
a little mischievously. “You surely have not much
reason to do so when you recall the incidents of our
first interview. Maddy—Miss Clyde, I mean—I have
come to the conclusion that I knew less than you did,
and I beg your pardon for annoying you so terribly.”
Then Guy explained to her briefly how it all had
happened, blaming himself far more than he did the
doctor, who, he said, had repented bitterly.
“Had you died, Miss Clyde, when you were so
sick, I believe he would have felt it his duty to die
also. He was greatly interested in you; more indeed
than in any patient I ever knew him to have,” and
Guy’s eyes glanced curiously at Maddy to witness the
effect his words might have upon her. But Maddy
merely answered:
164“Yes, I think he was anxious for me to get well.
He was very kind, and I like him very much.”
Mentally chiding himself for trying to find in
Maddy’s head an idea which evidently never was
there, Guy began to speak of her proposition to leave,
saying he should not suffer it, Jessie needed her and
she must stay. She was not to mind the disagreeable
things Mrs. Remington had said. She was tired and
nervous, and so gave way to some very preposterous
notions, which she had picked up somewhere. She
would treat Maddy better hereafter, and she must
stay. It was pleasanter for Jessie to have a companion
so near her own age. Then, as he saw signs
of yielding in Maddy’s face, he continued:
“How would you like to turn scholar for a short
time each day; I being your teacher? Time often
hangs heavily upon my hands, and I fancy the novelty
of the thing would suit me. I have books. I will
appoint your lessons and the hour for recitation.”
Guy’s face was scarlet by the time he finished
speaking, for suddenly he remembered to have heard
or read of a similar instance which resulted in the marriage
of the teacher and pupil; besides that, it would
subject him to so much remark, when it was known
that he was teaching a pretty, attractive girl like
165Maddy Clyde, and he sincerely hoped she would
decline. But Maddy had no such intention. Always
in earnest herself, she supposed every one else meant
what they said, and without ever suspecting the peculiar
position in which such a proceeding would place
both herself and Guy, her heart leaped up at the idea
of knowing what was in the books, she had never
dared hope she might study. With her beautiful eyes
full of tears, which shone like diamonds, as she lifted
them to Guy’s face, she said:
“Oh, I thank you so much. You could not make
me happier, and I’ll try so hard to learn. They don’t
teach such things at the district school as you asked
me about that day; and when there was a high school
in Honedale I could not go, for it was three dollars a
quarter, and grandpa had no three dollars for me.
Uncle Joseph needed help, and so I staid at home.
It’s dreadful to be poor, but, perhaps, I shall some time
be competent to teach in a seminary, and won’t that
be grand? When can I begin?”
Guy had never met with so much frankness and
simplicity in any one, unless it were in Lucy Atherstone,
of whom Maddy reminded him a little, except
that she was more practical, more—he hardly knew
what—only there was a difference, and a thought
166crossed his mind that if Maddy had had all Lucy’s
advantage and was as old, she would be what the
English call cleverer. There was no disparagement to
Lucy in his thoughts, only a compliment to Maddy,
who was waiting for him to answer her question; he
had offered his services; she had accepted; and with
the mental comment, “I dread Doc’s chaff the most
so I’ll explain to him that I am educating her for the
future Mrs. Holbrook,” he replied:
“As soon as I am rested from my journey, or
sooner, if you like; and now tell me, please, who is
this Uncle Joseph of whom you spoke?”
He remembered what the doctor had said of a
crazy uncle, but wishing to hear Maddy’s version of it,
put to her the question he did.
“Uncle Joseph is grandma’s youngest brother,”
Maddy answered, “and he has been in the Lunatic
Asylum for years. As long as his little property
lasted, his bills were paid, but now they keep him
from charity, only grandpa helps all he can, and buys
some little nice things which he wants so badly, and
sometimes cries for, they say. I picked berries all
last summer, and sold them, to buy him a thin coat
and pants. We should have more to spend than we
do, if it were not for Uncle Joseph,” and Maddy’s face
167wore a thoughtful expression as she recalled all the
shifts and turns she’d seen made at home that the poor
maniac might be more comfortable.
“What made him crazy?” Guy asked, and after a
moment’s hesitancy Maddy replied:
“I don’t believe grandma would mind my telling
you, though she don’t talk about it much. I only
knew it a little while ago. He was disappointed once.
He loved a girl very much, and she made him think
that she loved him. She was many years younger than
Uncle Joseph—about my age at first, and when she
grew up she said she was sick of him, because he was
so much older. He wouldn’t have felt so badly, if she
had not gone straight off and married a rich man who
was a great deal older even than Uncle Joseph; that
was the hardest part, and he went crazy at once. It
has been so long that he never can be helped, and
sometimes grandma talks of bringing him home, as he
is perfectly harmless. I suppose it’s wicked, but I
most hope she won’t, for it would be terrible to live
with a crazy man,” and a chill crept over Maddy, as if
there had fallen upon her a foreshadowing of what
might be. “Mr. Remington,” she continued, suddenly,
“if you teach me, I can’t of course expect three
dollars a week. It would not be right.”
168“Perfectly right,” he answered. “Your services
to Jessie will be worth just as much as ever, so give
yourself no trouble on that score.”
He was the best man that ever lived, Maddy
thought, and so she told the doctor that afternoon
when, as he rode up to Aikenside, she met him on the
lawn before he reached the house.
It did strike the doctor a little comically that one
of Guy’s habits should offer to turn school teacher, but
Maddy was so glad that he was glad too, and doubly
glad that across the sea there was a Lucy Atherstone.
How he wished that she was there now as Mrs. Guy,
and he must tell Guy so that very day. Seated in
Guy’s library, the opportunity soon occurred, for Guy
approached the subject himself by saying:
“Guess, Hal, what crazy project I have just
embarked in.”
“I know without guessing; Maddy told me,” and
the doctor’s eyebrows were elevated a little as he
crossed his feet upon the window-sill and moved his
chair so as to have a better view of Maddy and Jessie
romping in the grass.
“And so you don’t approve?” was Guy’s next
remark, to which the doctor replied:
“Why yes; it’s a grand thing for her, providing
169you know enough to teach her; but, Guy, this is
a confounded gossiping neighborhood, and folks will
talk, I’m afraid.”
“Talk about what?” and Guy bridled up as his
independent spirit began to rise. “What harm is
there in my doing a generous act to a poor girl like
Maddy Clyde? Isn’t she graceful as a kitten,
though?” and Guy nodded toward the spot where she
was playing.
It annoyed the doctor to have Guy praise Maddy,
but he would not show it, and answered calmly:
“It’s all right in you, but just because the poor
girl is Maddy Clyde, folks will talk. She is too handsome
for Madam Grundy to let alone. If Lucy were
only here, it would be different. Why, in the name
of wonder, are you two not married, if you are ever
going to be?”
“Jealous, as I live!” and Guy’s hand came down
playfully on the doctor’s shoulder. “I did not suppose
you had got so far as that. You are afraid of
the effect it may have on me teaching a sweet-faced
little girl how to conjugate amo; and to cover up
your own interest, you bring Lucy forward as an
argument. Eh, Hal, have I not probed your secret?”
170The doctor was in no mood for joking, and only
smiled gloomily, while Guy continued:
“Honestly, doctor, I am doing it for you. I
imagine you fancy her, as well you may. She’ll make
a splendid woman, but she needs education, of course,
and I am going to give it to her. You ought to thank
me, instead of looking so like a thunder-cloud,” and
Guy laughed merrily.
The doctor was ashamed of his mood, and could
not tell what spirit prompted him to answer:
“I am obliged to you, Guy; but as far as I am
concerned, you may spare yourself the trouble. If my
wife needs educating, I can do it myself.”
Guy was puzzled. Could it be that after all he
was deceived, and the doctor did not care for Maddy?
It might be, and he hastened to change the conversation
to another topic than Maddy Clyde. The doctor
staid to dinner, and as Guy watched him closely, he
made up his mind that he did care for Maddy
Clyde, and this confirmed him in his plan of educating
her for him.
Guy felt himself very good, very generous, very
condescending, and very forgiving, the earlier portion
of the afternoon; but later in the day he began to
view Guy Remington in the light of a martyr, said
171martyrdom consisting in the scornful toss of the head
with which Agnes had listened to his plan, and the
open opposition of Mrs. Noah.
“Was he beside himself, or what?” the latter
asked. “She liked Maddy Clyde herself, but it wasn’t
for him to demean himself by turning her schoolmaster.
Folks would talk awfully, and she couldn’t
blame ’em; besides, what would Lucy Atherstone say
to his bein’ alone in a room with a girl as pretty as
Maddy? It was a duty he owed her at any rate to tell
her all about it, and if she said ’twas right, why,
go it.”
This was the drift of Mrs. Noah’s remarks, and as
Guy depended much on her judgment, he decided to
write to Lucy and ask if she had the slightest objections
to his teaching Maddy Clyde. Accordingly he
wrote that very night, telling her frankly all he knew
concerning Maddy, and narrating the circumstances
under which he first had met her, being careful also to
repeat what he knew would have weight with an
English girl like Lucy, to wit: that though poor,
Maddy’s father and Grandfather Clyde had been
gentlemen, the one a clergyman, the other a sea captain.
Then he told of her desire for learning, and
his plan to teach her himself—of what the doctor and
172Mrs. Noah said about it, and his final determination to
consult her. Then he described Maddy herself, and
told how pure, how innocent, how artless and beautiful
she was, and asked if Lucy feared aught from his
association with her.
“If you do,” he wrote, “you have but to say so,
and though I am committed, I will extricate myself in
some way, rather than wound you in the slightest
degree.”
It would be some time ere an answer to this letter
could be received, and until such time Guy could not
honorably hear Maddy’s lessons, as he had agreed to
do. But Maddy was not suspicious, and accepting his
trivial excuse, waited patiently, while he too waited
for the letter, wondering what it would contain.
CHAPTER XII. LUCY’S LETTER.
173
At last the answer came, and it was Maddy
who brought it to Aikenside. She had
been home that day, and on her return
had ridden by the office as Guy had requested her to
do. She saw the letter bore a foreign post-mark, and
that it was in the delicate handwriting of some lady,
but the sight did not affect her in the least. Maddy’s
heart was far too heavy that day to care for a trifle,
and placing the letter carefully in her basket she kept
on to Aikenside.
The letter was just like Lucy, and Guy, while
reading it, felt how good she was. Of course, he
might teach Maddy Clyde all he wished to teach her,
and it made Lucy love him better to know that he was
willing to do such things. She wished she was there
to help him: they would open a school for all the
poor, but she did not know when her mother would
let her come. That pain in her side was not any better,
174and her cough had come earlier this season than
last. The physician had advised a winter in Naples,
and they were going before very long. It would be
pleasant there, no doubt, only she should be farther
away from her Guy, but she would think of him, oh!
so often, teaching that dear little Maddy Clyde, and
she should pray for him, too, just as she always did.
Then followed a few more lines sacred to the lover’s
eye, lines which told how pure was the love which
sweet Lucy Atherstone bore for Guy Remington, who,
as he read, felt his heart beat with a throb of pain, for
Lucy spoke to him now for the first time of what
might possibly be in store for them.
“I’ve dreamed about it nights,” she said, “I’ve
thought about it days, and tried so hard to be reconciled;
to feel that if God will have it so, I am willing
to die before you have ever called me your wife, or I
have ever called you husband. Heaven is better than
earth, I know, and I am sure of going there, I think;
but, oh! dear Guy, a life with you looks so very
sweet, that I sometimes shrink from the dark grave,
which would hide me forever from you. Guy, you
once said you never prayed, and it made me feel so
badly, but you will, when you get this, won’t you?
You will ask God to make me well, and maybe he will
175hear you. Do, Guy, please pray for your Lucy, far
away over the sea.”
Guy could not resist that touching appeal, and
though his lips were all unused to prayer, he bowed his
head upon his hands and asked that she might live,
beseeching the Father to send upon him any calamity
save this one—Lucy must not die. Guy felt better
for having prayed. It was something to tell Lucy,
something that would please her, and though his
heart yet was very sad, a part of the load was lifted,
and he could think of Lucy now, without the bitter
pain her letter first had cost him. Was there nothing
that would save her, nobody who could cure her?
Her disease was not hereditary; surely it might be
made to yield. Had English physicians no skill? would
not an American do better? It was possible, and if
Lucy’s mother would let her come where doctors were
skillful, she might get well; but she was determined
that no husband should be burdened with an ailing
wife, and so, if the mountain would not come to
Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain; and
Guy fairly leaped from his chair as he exclaimed, “I
have it—there’s Doc!—he’s the most skillful man I
ever knew; I’ll send him to England; send him to the
Atherstones; he shall go to Naples with them as their
176family physician; he can cure Lucy; I’ll speak to him
the very next time he comes here;” and with another
burden lifted from his mind, Guy began to wonder
where Maddy was, and why the day had been so
long.
He knew she had returned, for Flora had said she
brought the letter, and he was about going out, in
hopes of finding her and Jessie, when he heard her in
the hall, as she answered some question of Mrs.
Noah’s; stepping to the door, he asked her to come
in, saying he would, if she chose, appoint the lessons
talked about so long. Ordinarily, Maddy’s eyes
would have flashed with delight, for she had anticipated
so much from these lessons; now, however,
there was a sad look upon her face, and she could
scarcely keep from crying as she came at Guy’s
bidding, and sat upon the sofa, near his arm-chair.
Somehow it rested Guy to look at Maddy Clyde, who,
having recovered from her illness, seemed the very
embodiment of perfect health, a health which glowed
and sparkled all over her bright face; showing itself
as well in the luxuriance of her glossy hair as in the
brilliancy of her complexion, and the flash of her
lustrous eyes. How Guy wished that Lucy could
share in what seemed almost a superfluity of health;
177and why shouldn’t she? Dr. Holbrook had cured
Maddy; Dr. Holbrook could cure Lucy; and so for
the present dismissing Lucy from his mind, he turned
to Maddy, and said the time had come when he could
give those promised lessons, and asked if she would
commence to-morrow, after she was through with
Jessie, and what she would prefer to take up first.
“Oh, Mr. Remington,” and Maddy began to cry,
“I am afraid I cannot stay! they need me at home,
or may need me. Grandpa said so, and I don’t want
to go, though I know it’s wicked not to; oh, dear,
dear!”
Here Maddy broke down entirely, sobbing so convulsively
that Guy became alarmed, and wondered
what he ought to do to quiet her. As she sat the
bowed head was just within his reach, and he very
naturally laid his hand upon it, and, as if it had been
Jessie’s, smoothed the silken hair, while he asked why
she must go home? Had anything occurred to make
her presence more necessary than it was at Aikenside?
Controlling her voice as well as she was able,
Maddy told him that the physicians at the asylum had
written that as Uncle Joseph would in all human probability
never be perfectly sane, and as a change of
scene would do him good, it might be well for Mr.
178Markham to take him to Honedale awhile; that
having been spoken with upon the subject, he seemed
as anxious as a little child, even crying when the
night came round and he was not at home, as he
expressed it. “They have kept him so long,” Maddy
said, “that grandpa thought it his duty to relieve
them, though he can’t well afford it; and so he’s
coming next week, and grandma will need some one
to help, and I must go. I know it’s wrong, but I
do not want to go, try as I will.”
It was a gloomy prospect to exchange Aikenside
for the humble home where poverty had its abode, and
it was not very strange that Maddy should shrink
from it at first. She did not stop to ask what was
her duty, or think how much happiness her presence
might give her grandparents, or how much she might
cheer and amuse the imbecile, her uncle. She was
but human, and so when Guy began to devise ways
of preventing her going, she listened, while the pain
at her heart grew less as her faith in Guy grew
stronger. He would drive down with her to-morrow,
he said, and see what could be done. Meanwhile she
must dry her eyes and go to Jessie, who was calling
her.
As Guy had half expected, the doctor came round
179that evening, and inviting him into his private room,
Guy proceeded at once to unfold his scheme, asking
him first:
“How much he probably received a year for his
services as physician.”
The doctor could not tell at once, but after a little
thought made an estimate, and then inquired why
Guy had asked the question.
“Because I have a project on foot. Lucy Atherstone
is dying with what they call consumption. I
don’t believe those old fogies understand her disease,
and if you will go over to England and undertake her
cure, I’ll give you just double what you’ll get by
remaining here. They are going to Naples for the
winter, and, undoubtedly, will spend some time in
Rome. It will be just the thing for you. Lucy and
her mother will be glad of your services when they
know I sent you. Lucy likes you now. Will you
go? You can trust Maddy to me. I’ll take good
care that she is worthy of you when you come back.”
At the mention of Maddy’s name, the doctor’s
brow darkened. He was sure that Guy meant kindly,
but it grated on his feelings to be thus joked about
what he knew was a stern reality. Guy’s project
appeared to him at first a most insane one, but as he
180continued to enlarge upon it, and the advantage it
would be to the doctor to travel in the old world, a
feeling of enthusiasm was kindled in his own breast;
a desire to visit Naples and Rome, and the places he
had dreamed of as a boy, but never hoped to see; and
Guy’s plan began to look more feasible, and possibly
he might have yielded but for one thought, and that a
thought of Maddy Clyde. He would not leave her
alone with Guy, even though Guy was true to Lucy as
steel. He would stay; he would watch; and in time
he would win the young girl, waiting now for him in
the hall below to tell him, amid blushes of shame and
tears of regret, how she had intended to pay him with
her very first wages, but now that Uncle Joseph was
coming home, he must wait a little longer.
“Will you be so good?” and unmindful of Guy’s
presence Maddy laid her hand confidingly upon his
arm, while her soft eyes looked beseechingly into his
as she explained.
Thinking they would rather be alone, Guy left
them together in the lighted hall, and then, sitting
down on the sofa, and making Maddy sit beside him,
the doctor began:
“Maddy, you know I mean what I say, at least to
you, and when I tell you that I never think of that
181bill except when you speak of it, you will believe me.
I know your grandfather’s circumstances, and I know,
too, that I did much to induce your sickness, consequently
if I made one out at all, it would be a very
small one.”
He did not get any further, for Maddy hastily
interrupted him, and while her eyes flashed with pride,
exclaimed:
“I will not be a charity patient! I say I will not!
I’d be a hired girl before I’d do it!”
It troubled the doctor to see Maddy so disturbed
about dollars and cents—to know that poverty was
pressing its iron hand upon her young heart; and only
because she was so young did he refrain from offering
her then and there a resting-place from the ills of life
in his sheltering love. But she was not prepared, and
he should only defeat his object by his rashness, so he
restrained himself, though he did pass his arm partly
around her waist as he said to her:
“I tell you, Maddy, honestly, that when I want
that bill liquidated I’ll ask you. I certainly will, and
will let you pay it, too. Does that satisfy you?”
“Yes,” Maddy said, and after a little the doctor
continued:
“By the way, Maddy, I have some idea of going
182to Europe for a few months, or a year, perhaps. You
know it does a physician good to study awhile in
Paris. What do you think of it? Shall I go?”
The doctor had become quite necessary to Maddy’s
happiness. It was to him she confided all her little
troubles, and to lose him would be a terrible loss; and
so she answered that if it would be much better for
him she supposed he ought to go, though she should
miss him sadly and be very lonely without him.
“Would you, Maddy? Are you in earnest?
Would you be the lonelier for my being gone?” the
doctor asked, eagerly. With her usual truthfulness,
Maddy replied, “Of course I should;” and when, after
the conference was ended, the doctor stood for a
moment talking with Guy, ere bidding him good-night,
he said, “I think I shall not accept your European
proposition. Somebody else must cure Lucy.”
The next day, as Guy had proposed, he rode down
to Honedale, taking Maddy with him, and offering so
many reasons why she should not be called home, that
the old people began to relent, particularly as they
saw how Maddy’s heart was set on the lessons Guy
was going to give her. She might never have a like
opportunity, the young man said, and as a good education
would put her in the way of helping them when
183they were older and needed her more, it was their duty
to leave her with him. He knew they objected to her
receiving three dollars a week, but he should pay it
just the same, and if they chose they might, with a
part of it, hire a little girl to do the work which
Maddy would do were she at home. All this sounded
very well, especially as it was backed by Maddy’s
eyes, full of tears, and fixed pleadingly upon her
grandfather. The sight of them, more than Guy’s
arguments, influenced the old man, who decided that
if grandma were willing, Maddy should stay, unless
absolutely needed at the cottage. Then the tears
burst forth, and winding her arms around her grandfather’s
neck, Maddy sobbed out her thanks, asking if
it were selfish and wicked and naughty in her to prefer
an education.
“Not if that’s your only reason,” grandpa replied.
“It’s right to want learning, quite right; but if my
child is biased by the fine things at Aikenside, and
hates to come back to her poor home, because ’tis
poor, I should say it was very natural, but not exactly
right.”
Maddy was very happy after it was settled, and
chatted gayly with her grandmother while Guy went
184out with her grandfather, who wished to speak with
him alone.
“Young man,” he said, “you have taken a deep
interest in me and mine since I first came to know
you, and I thank you for it all. I’ve nothing to give
in return except my prayers, and those you have
every day; you and that doctor. I pray for you two
just as I do for Maddy. Somehow you three come in
together. You’re uncommon good to Maddy. ’Tain’t
every one like you who would offer and insist on
learning her. I don’t know what you do it for. You
seem honest. You can’t, of course, ever dream of
making her your wife, and, if I thought—yes, if I
supposed,”—here grandpa’s voice trembled, and his
face became livid with horror at the idea—“if I supposed
that in your heart there was the shadow of an
intention to deceive my child, to ruin my Maddy, I’d
throttle you here on the spot, old as I am, and bitter
as I should repent the rashness.”
Guy attempted to speak, but grandpa motioned
him to be silent, while he went on:
“I do not suspect you, and that’s why I trust her
with you. My old eyes are dim, but I can see enough
to know that Maddy is beautiful. Her mother was so
before her, and the Clydes were a handsome race. My
185Alice was elevated, folks thought, by marrying Captain
Clyde, but I don’t think so. She was pure and
good as the angels, and Maddy is much like her, only
she has the ambition of the Clydes; has their taste
for everything a little above her. She wouldn’t make
nobody blush if she was mistress of Aikenside.”
Grandpa felt relieved when he had said all this to
Guy, who listened politely, smiling at the idea of
deceiving Maddy, and fully concurring with grandpa
in all he said of her rare beauty and natural gracefulness.
On their return to the house grandpa showed
Guy the bed-room intended for Uncle Joseph, and
Guy, as he glanced at the furniture, thought within
himself how he would send down from Aikenside
some of the unused articles piled away on the garret
when he refurnished his house.
CHAPTER XIII. GOSSIP.
186
In course of time Uncle Joseph came, as was
arranged, and on the day following Maddy
and Guy went down to see him, finding
him a tall, powerfully-built man, retaining many vestiges
of manly beauty, and fully warranting all Mrs.
Markham had said in his praise. He seemed perfectly
gentle and harmless, though when Guy was announced
as Mr. Remington, Maddy noticed that in his keen
black eyes there was for an instant a fiery gleam, but
it quickly passed away, as he muttered:
“Much too young; he was older than I, and I am
over forty. It’s all right.”
And the fiery eye grew soft and almost sleepy in
its expression, as the poor lunatic turned next to
Maddy, telling her how pretty she was, asking her if
she were engaged, and bidding her be careful that her
fiancé was not more than a dozen years older than
herself.
187Uncle Joseph seemed to fancy her from the very
first, following her from room to room, touching her
fair soft cheeks, smoothing her silken hair, telling her
Sarah’s used to curl, asking if she knew where Sarah
was, and finally crying for her as a child cries for its
mother, when at last she went away. Much of this
Maddy repeated to Jessie, as in the twilight they sat
together in the parlor at Aikenside; and Jessie was
not the only listener, for, with her face resting on her
hand, and her head bent eagerly forward, Agnes sat,
so as not to lose a word of what Maddy was saying of
Uncle Joseph. The intelligence that he was coming
to the red cottage had been followed by a series
of headaches, so severe and protracted that Dr. Holbrook
had pronounced her really sick, and had been
unusually attentive. Very anxiously she had waited
for the result of Maddy’s visit to the poor lunatic, and
her face was white as marble as she heard him described,
while a faint sigh escaped her when Maddy
told what he had said of Sarah.
Agnes was changed somewhat of late. She had
grown more thoughtful and quiet, while her manner
toward Maddy was not so haughty as formerly. Guy
thought her improved, and thus was not so delighted
as he would otherwise have been, when, one day, about
188two weeks after Uncle Joseph’s arrival at Honedale,
she startled him by saying she thought it nearly time
for her to return to Boston, if she meant to spend
the winter there, and asked what she should do
with Jessie.
Guy was not quite willing for Agnes to leave him
there alone, but when he saw that she was determined
he consented to her going, with the understanding
that Jessie was to remain—a plan which Agnes did
not oppose, as a child so large as Jessie might stand in
the way of her being so gay as she meant to be in
Boston. Jessie, too, when consulted, said she would
far rather remain at Aikenside; and so one November
morning, Agnes kissed her little daughter, and
bidding good-bye to Maddy and the servants, left a
neighborhood which, since Uncle Joseph was so near,
had become so intolerable that not even the hope
of winning the doctor could avail to keep her in it.
Guy accompanied her to the city, wondering why,
when he used to like it so much, it now seemed dull
and tiresome, or why the society he had formerly enjoyed
failed to bring back the olden pleasure he had
experienced when a resident of Boston. Guy was
very popular there, and much esteemed by his friends
of both sexes, and great were the efforts made to entertain
189and keep him as long as possible. But he
could not be prevailed upon to stay there long, and
after seeing Agnes settled in one of the most fashionable
boarding-houses he started for Aikenside.
It was dark when he reached home, and as the
evening had closed in with a heavy rain, the house
presented rather a cheerless appearance, particularly
as, in consequence of Mrs. Noah’s not expecting
him that day, no fires had been kindled in the
parlors, or in any room except the library. There
a bright coal fire was blazing in the grate, and
thither Guy repaired, finding there, as he expected,
Jessie and her teacher. Not liking to intrude on
Mr. Guy, of whom she still stood somewhat in
awe, Maddy soon arose to leave, but Guy bade
her stay; he should be lonely without her, he said;
and so, bringing her work, she sat down to sew,
while Jessie looked over a book of prints, and Guy
upon the lounge studied the face which, it seemed
to him, grew each day more and more beautiful.
Then he talked with her of books, and the lessons
which were to be resumed on the morrow, watching
her as her bright face sparkled and glowed with
excitement. Then he questioned her of her father’s
family, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction in
190knowing that the Clydes were not a race of whose
blood any one need be ashamed; and Maddy was
more like them, he was sure, than like the Markhams,
and Guy shivered a little as he recalled the
peculiar dialect of Mr. and Mrs. Markham, and
remembered that they were Maddy’s grandparents.
Not that it was anything to him. Only as an
inmate of his family he felt interested in her, more
so perhaps than young men were apt to be interested
in their sister’s governess.
Had Guy then been asked the question, he would,
in all probability, have acknowledged that in his
heart there was a feeling of superiority to Maddy
Clyde; that she was not quite the equal of Aikenside’s
heir, nor yet of Lucy Atherstone. It was
natural; he had been educated to feel the difference,
but any haughty arrogance of which he might have
been guilty was kept down by his extreme good
sense, and generous, impulsive nature. He liked
Maddy; he liked to look at her as, in the becoming
crimson merino which he really and Jessie nominally
had given her, she sat before him, with the firelight
falling on her beautiful hair, and making shadows
on her sunny face.
Guy was luxurious in his tastes and it seemed to
191him that Maddy was just the picture to set off that
room, or, in fact, all the rooms at Aikenside. She
would disgrace none of them, and he found himself
wishing that Providence had made her something to
him—sister or cousin, or anything that would make
her one of the Remington line.
It did not take long for the people in the neighborhood
to hear that Guy Remington had turned schoolmaster,
and had in his library for two hours or more
each day Jessie’s little girl-governess, about whose
beauty there was so much said; people wondering, as
people will, where it would end, and if it could be possible
that the haughty Guy had forgotten his English
fiancée and was educating a wife.
The doctor, to whom these remarks were sometimes
made, silently gnashed his teeth, then said
savagely that “if Guy chose to teach Maddy Clyde,
he did not see whose business it was,” and then rode
over to Aikenside to see the teacher and pupil, half
hoping that Guy would soon tire of his project and
give it up. But Guy grew more and more pleased
with his employment, until, at last, from giving
Maddy two hours of his time, he gave her four,
esteeming them the pleasantest of the whole twenty-four.
Guy was proud of Maddy’s improvement, and
192often praised her to the doctor, who also marveled at
the rapid development of her mind and the progress
she made, grasping a knotty point almost before it was
explained, and retaining with wonderful tenacity what
she had learned.
It mattered nothing to Guy that the neighbors
gossiped; there were none familiar enough to tell him
what was said, except the doctor or Mrs. Noah; and
so he heard few of the remarks made so frequently.
As in Honedale, so in Sommerville Maddy was a
favorite, and those who interested themselves most in
the matter never said anything worse of her and Mr.
Guy than that he might perhaps be educating his own
wife, and insinuating that it would be a great “catch”
for Grandfather Markham’s child. But Maddy never
dreamed of such a thing, and kept on her pleasant
way, reciting every day to Guy, and going every
Wednesday to the red cottage, whither, after his first
visit to Uncle Joseph, Guy never accompanied her.
Jessie, on the contrary, went often to Honedale, where
the lunatic always greeted her coming, stealing up
closely to her, and whispering softly, “My Daisy has
come again.”
He had called her Sarah at first, and then changed
the name to “Daisy,” which he persisted in calling
193her, watching from his window for her coming, and
crying whenever Maddy appeared without her. At
first Agnes, in her letters, forbade Jessie’s going
so often to see a lunatic; but when Jessie described
the poor, crazy man’s delight at sight of her, telling
how quiet and happy he seemed if he could but lay his
hand on her head, or touch her hair, she withdrew her
restrictions, and, as if moved to an unwonted burst of
tenderness, wrote to her daughter, “Comfort that
crazy man all you can; he needs it so much.”
A few weeks after this there came another letter
from Agnes, but this time it was to Guy, and its
contents darkened his handsome face with anger
and vexation. Incidentally Agnes had heard the
gossip, and written it to Guy, adding, in conclusion:
“Of course I know it is not true, for even if there
were no Lucy Atherstone, you, of all men, would
not stoop to Maddy Clyde. I do not presume to
advise, but I will say this, that now she is growing a
young lady, people will keep on talking so long
as you keep her there in the house; and it’s hardly
fair toward Lucy.”
Latterly Guy had fancied that the doctor did not
like the educating process, while even Mrs. Noah
managed to keep Maddy out of his way as soon
194as the lessons were ended. What did they mean?
What were they afraid of, and why did they presume
to interfere with him? He would know, at all
events; and summoning Mrs. Noah to his presence,
he read her that part of Agnes’s letter pertaining to
Maddy, and asked what it meant.
“It means this, that folks are in a constant worry,
for fear you’ll fall in love with Maddy Clyde.”
“I fall in love with that child!” Guy repeated,
laughing at the idea, and forgetting that he had often
accused the doctor of doing that very thing.
“Yes, you,” returned Mrs. Noah, “and ’taint
strange they do; Maddy is not a child; she’s nearer
sixteen than fifteen, is almost a young lady; and
if you’ll excuse my boldness, I must say I ain’t
any too well pleased with the goin’s on myself;
not that I don’t like the girl, for I do, and I
don’t blame her an atom. She’s as innocent as a
new-born babe, and I hope she’ll always stay so;
but you, Mr. Guy, you now tell me honest—do
you think as much of Lucy Atherstone as you used to,
before you took up school-teachin’?”
Guy did not like to be interfered with, and,
naturally high-spirited, he at first flew into a passion,
declaring that he would not have people meddling
195with him, that he thought of Lucy Atherstone all
the time, and he did not know what more he could
do; that it was a pity if a man could not enjoy
himself in his own way, provided that way were
harmless; that he’d never, in all his life, spent so
happy a winter as the last; that——
Here Mrs. Noah interrupted him with, “That’s
it, the very it; you want nothing better than to
have that girl sit close to you when she recites,
as she does; and once when she was workin’ out
some of them plusses and minuses, and things, her
slate rested on your knee; it did, I saw it with my
own eyes; and then, let me ask, when Jessie is
drummin’ on the piano, why don’t you bend over
her, and turn the leaves, and count the time as you
do when Maddy plays; and how does it happen that
lately, Jessie is in the way, when you hear Maddy’s
lessons. She has no suspicions, but I know she
ain’t sent off for nothin’; I know you’d rather be
alone with Maddy Clyde than to have anybody
present; isn’t it so?”
Guy began to wince. There was much truth in
what Mrs. Noah had said. He did devise various
methods of getting rid of Jessie when Maddy was in
his library, but it had never looked to him in just the
196light it did as when presented by Mrs. Noah, and he
doggedly asked what Mrs. Noah would have him do.
“First and foremost, then, I’d have you tell Maddy
yourself that you are engaged to Lucy Atherstone;
second, I’d have you write to Lucy all about it, and if
you honestly can, tell her that you only care for
Maddy as a friend; third, I’d have you send the
girl——”
“Not away from Aikenside! I never will!” and
Guy sprang to his feet.
The mine had exploded, and for an instant the
young man reeled, as he caught a glimpse of his real
self. Still, he would not believe it, or confess to himself
how strong a place in his affection was held by
the beautiful girl, now no longer a child. It was
almost a year since that April afternoon when he first
saw Maddy Clyde, and from a timid, bashful child, of
fourteen and a half, she had grown to the rather tall
and self-possessed maiden of fifteen and a half, almost
sixteen, or, as Mrs. Noah said, “almost a woman;”
and as if to verify the latter fact, she herself appeared
at that very moment, asking permission to come in and
find a book, which had been mislaid, and which she
needed in hearing Jessie’s lessons.
“Certainly, come in,” Guy said; and folding his
197arms he leaned against the mantel, watching her as
she hunted for the missing book.
There was no pretense about Maddy Clyde, nothing
was done for effect, and yet in every movement she
showed marks of great improvement, both in manner
and style. Of one hundred people who might glance
at her, ninety-nine would look a second time, asking
who she was. Naturally graceful and utterly forgetful
of herself, she always appeared to good advantage,
and never to better than now, when two pairs of eyes
were watching her, as, standing on tiptoe, or kneeling
upon the floor to look under the secretary, she hunted
for the book. Not the remotest suspicion had Maddy
of what was occupying the thoughts of her companions,
though, as she left the room and glanced brightly
up at Guy, it struck her that his face was dark and
moody, and a painful sensation flitted through her
mind that in some way she had intruded.
“Well,” was Mrs. Noah’s first comment, as the
door closed on Maddy; but as Guy made no response
to that, she continued: “She is pretty. That you
won’t deny.”
“Yes, more than pretty. She’ll make a most
beautiful woman.”
Guy seemed to talk more to himself than to Mrs.
198Noah, while his foot kicked the fender, and he mentally
compared Lucy and Maddy with each other, and
tried to think that it was not the result of this comparison,
but rather Mrs. Noah’s next remark, which
affected him unpleasantly.
“Of course she’ll make a splendid woman,” Mrs.
Noah said. “Everybody notices her now for her
beauty, and that’s why you’ve no business to keep her
here where you see her every day. It’s a wrong to
her, lettin’ yourself alone.”
Guy looked up inquiringly, and Mrs. Noah continued:
“I’ve been a girl myself, and I know that Maddy
can’t be treated as you treat her without its having an
effect. I’ve no idea that it’s entered her head yet, but
it will, and then good-bye to her happiness.”
“For pity’s sake, what do you mean? Do explain,
and not talk to me in riddles. What have I done to
Maddy, or what am I going to do?”
Guy spoke savagely, and his boots were in great
danger of being burned as he kicked vigorously
against the fender. Coming nearer to him, and lowering
her voice, Mrs. Noah replied:
“You are going to teach her to love you, Guy
Remington, just as sure as my name is Noah.”
199“And is that anything so very bad, I’d like to
know? Most girls do not find love distasteful,” and
Guy walked hastily to the window, where he stood for
a moment gazing out upon the soft April snow, which
was falling, and feeling anything but satisfied either
with the weather or himself; then walking back, and
taking a seat before the fire, he said: “I understand
you now. You would save Maddy Clyde from sorrow,
and you are right. You know more of girls than
I do. She might in time get to—to—think of me as
she ought not. I never looked upon it in this light
before. I’ve been so happy with her;” Guy’s voice
faltered a little, but he recovered himself and went
on: “I will tell her about Lucy to-night, but I can’t
send her away. Neither will she be happy to go
back, for though the best of people, they are not like
Maddy, and you know it.”
Mrs. Noah did know it, and pleased that her boy,
as she called Guy, had shown some signs of penitence
and amendment, she said she did not think it necessary
to send Maddy home; she did not advise it
either. She liked the girl, and what she advised was
this, that Guy should send Maddy and Jessie both to
boarding-school. Agnes, she knew, would be willing,
and it was the best thing he could do. Maddy would
200thus learn what was expected of a teacher, and as soon
as she graduated, she could procure some eligible
situation, or if Lucy were there, and desired it, she
could come and stay forever for all she cared.
“And during the vacations, where must she go?”
Guy asked.
“Go where she pleases, of course. As Jessie is so
fond of her, and they are so much like sisters, it will not
be improper for her to come here, as I see, provided
Agnes is here. Her presence, of course, would make
a difference,” Mrs. Noah replied; while Guy continued:
“I know you are right; that is, I do not wish to
do Maddy a harm by placing temptation in her way,
neither will I have anybody meddling with my business.
I tell you I won’t. I don’t mean you, for you
have a right to say what no one else has,” and he
glanced half angrily at Mrs. Noah. “Pity if I can’t
take an interest in a girl, because I once wronged her,
without every old woman in Christendom thinking
she must needs fall in love with me, and so be ruined
for life. Maddy Clyde has too good sense for that, or
will have when I tell her about Lucy.”
“And you will do so?” Mrs. Noah said, coaxingly.
201“Of course I will, and write to Lucy, too, telling
her how you talked, and how I care no more for
Maddy than I do for Jessie.”
“And will that be true?” Mrs. Noah asked.
Guy could not look her fully in the face then,
so he kicked the grate until the concussion sent the
red-hot coals out upon the carpet, as he replied:
“True? Yes, every word of it.”
Mrs. Noah noted all this, and thought:
“I ought to have taken him in hand long ago;”
then she came up to him and said kindly, soothingly,
“We shall all miss Maddy; I as much as any one,
but I do think it best for her to go to school; and
so, after tea, I’ll manage to keep Jessie with me,
and send Maddy to you, while you tell her about
Lucy and the plan.”
Guy nodded a little jerking kind of a nod, in
token of his assent, and then, with that perversity
which prompts women particularly to press a subject
after enough has been said upon it, Mrs. Noah, as
she turned to leave the room, gave vent to the following:
“You know, Guy, as well as I, that, pretty as she
is, Maddy is really beneath you, and no kind of a
match, even if you wan’t as good as married, which
202you be;” and the good lady left the room in time
to escape seeing the sparks fly up the chimney, as
Guy now made a most vigorous use of the poker,
and so did not finish the scorching process commenced
on the end of his boot.
Mrs. Noah’s last remark awakened in Guy a singular
train of thought. Maddy was his inferior as
the world saw matters, and, settling himself in the
chair, he tried to fancy what that same world would
say if he should make Maddy his wife. Of course he
had no such intentions, he was just imagining something
which never could possibly happen, because
in the first place he wouldn’t marry Maddy Clyde
if he could, and he couldn’t if he would! Still,
it was not an unpleasant occupation fancying what
his friends, and especially Agnes, would say if he
did, and so he sat dreaming about it until the bell
rang for supper, when with a nervous start he woke
from the reverie, and wishing the whole was over
started for the supper room.
CHAPTER XIV. MADDY AND LUCY.
203
Supper was over, and Guy had returned
to his library. He had not stopped, as
he usually did, to romp with Jessie or
talk to Maddy Clyde, but had come directly back,
dropping the heavy curtains and piling fresh coal
upon the fire. Mrs. Noah had lighted the lamps
and then gone after Maddy, explaining to Jessie that
she must stay with her while Maddy went to Mr.
Guy, who wanted to talk with her.
“Is he angry with me, Mrs. Noah?” Maddy asked,
and, remembering his moody looks when she went in
quest of the book, she felt her heart misgive her as
to what might be the result of an interview with
Guy.
Mrs. Noah, however, reassured her, and Maddy
stole for a moment to her own room to see how she
was looking. The crimson dress, with its soft edge of
lace about the slender throat, became her well, and,
204smoothing the folds of her muslin apron, whose
jaunty shoulder-pieces gave her a very girlish appearance,
she went down to where Guy was waiting
for her. He heard her coming, and involuntarily
drew nearer to him the chair where he intended she
should sit. But Maddy took instead a stool, and
leaning her elbow on the chair, turned her face fully
toward him, waiting for him to speak.
“Maddy,” he began, “are you happy here at
Aikenside?”
“Oh, yes, very, very happy,” and Maddy’s soft
eyes shone with the happiness she tried to express.
It was at least a minute before he spoke again,
and when he did, he told her he had concluded to send
her and Jessie to school, for a year or two at least;
not that he was tired of teaching her, but it would be
better for her, he thought, to mingle with other girls,
and learn the ways of the world. Aikenside would
still be her home, where her vacation would be spent
with Jessie if she chose, and then he spoke of New
York as the place he had in view, and asked her what
she thought of it.
Maddy was too much stunned to think of anything
at first. That the goal she had coveted most should
be placed within her grasp, and by Guy Remington
205too, was almost too much to credit. She was happy at
Aikenside, but she had never expected her life there
would continue very long, and had often wished that
when it ended she might devise some means of entering
a seminary, as other young ladies did. But she
had never dreamed of being sent to school by Guy,
nor could she conceive of his motive. He hardly
knew, himself, only he liked her, and wished to do
something for her.
“Oh, Mr. Remington, you are so good to me;
what makes you?” she cried; and then she told him
how much she wished to be a teacher, so as to help
take care of her grandparents and her poor Uncle
Joseph. It seemed almost cruel for that young creature
to be burdened with the care of those three half
helpless people, and Guy shuddered just as he usually
did when he associated Maddy with them, but when
he listened while she told him of all the castles she
had built, and in every one of which there was a place
for “our folks,” as she termed them, it was more in
the form of a blessing than a caress that his hand
rested on her shining hair.
“You are a good girl, Maddy,” he said, “and I am
glad now that I have concluded to send you where you
can be better fitted for the office you mean to fill than
206you could be here, but I shall miss you sadly. I like
little girls, and though you can hardly be classed with
them now, you seem to be much like Jessie, and I
take pleasure in doing for you as I would for her.
Maddy,——”
Guy stopped, uncertain what to say next, while
Maddy’s eyes again looked up inquiringly.
He was going now to tell “the little girl much
like Jessie” of Lucy Atherstone, and the words would
not come at first.
“Maddy,” he said, again blushing guiltily, “I
have said I liked you, and so I hope will some one
else. I have written of you to her.”
Up to this point Maddy had a vague idea that he
meant the doctor, but the “her” dispelled that thought,
and a most inexplicable feeling of numbness crept
over her as she asked, faintly:
“Written to whom?”
Guy did not look at Maddy. He only knew that
her head moved out from beneath his hand as he
replied:
“To Miss Atherstone—Miss Lucy Atherstone.
Have you never heard of her?”
Maddy never had, and with the same numbness
she could not understand, she listened while Guy
207told her who Lucy Atherstone was, and why she was
not at that moment the mistress of Aikenside. There
was no reason why Guy should be excited, but he
was, and he talked very rapidly, never once glancing
at Maddy until he had finished speaking. She was
looking at him intently, wondering if he could hear,
as she did the beatings of her heart. Had her life
depended upon it, she could not at first have spoken,
for the numbness which, like bands of steel, seemed
to press all the feeling out of it. She did not know
why it was that hearing of Lucy Atherstone should
affect her so. Surely she ought to be glad for Guy,
that he possessed the love of so sweet a creature as he
described her to be. He was glad, she knew, he
talked so energetically—so much as if it were a
pleasure to talk; and she was glad, too, only it had
taken her so by surprise to know that Mr. Guy was
engaged, and that some time Aikenside would really
have a mistress. She did not quite understand Guy’s
last words, although she was looking at him, and he
asked her twice if she would like to see Lucy’s picture
before she comprehended what he meant.
“Yes,” came faintly from the parted lips, about
which there was a slight quiver as she put up her
hand to take the case Guy drew from his bosom.
208Turning it to the light she gazed silently upon the
sweet young face, which seemed to return her gaze
with a look as earnest and curious as her own.
“What do you think of her—of my Lucy? Is
she not pretty?” Guy asked, bending down so that
his dark hair swept against Maddy’s, while his warm
breath touched her burning cheeks.
“Yes, she’s beautiful, oh! so beautiful, and happy,
too. I wish I had been like her! I wish——” and
Maddy burst into a most uncontrollable fit of weeping,
her tears dropping like rain upon the inanimate features
of Lucy Atherstone.
Guy looked at her amazed, his own heart throbbing
with a keen pang of something undefinable as he
listened to her stormy weeping. What did it mean?
he wondered. Could it be that the evil against which
he was providing had really come upon her? Was
Maddy more interested in him than he supposed? He
hoped not, though with a man’s vanity he felt a slight
thrill of satisfaction in thinking that it might be so.
Guy knew this feeling was not worthy of him, and he
struggled to cast it off, while he asked Maddy why
she cried.
Child as she was, the real cause of her tears never
entered her brain, and she answered:
209“I can’t tell why, unless I was thinking how
different Miss Atherstone is from me. She’s rich and
handsome. I am poor and homely, and——”
“No, Maddy, you are not;” and Guy interrupted
her.
Gently lifting up her head, he smoothed back her
hair; and keeping a hand on each side of her face,
said, pleasantly:
“You are not homely. I think you quite as pretty
as Lucy; I do, really,” he continued, as her eyes
kindled at the compliment. “I am going to write to
her to-night, and shall tell her more about you. I
want you to like each other very much when she
comes, so that you may live with us. Aikenside
would not be Aikenside without you, Maddy.”
In all his wooings of Lucy Atherstone, Guy’s voice
had never been tenderer in its tone than when he said
this to Maddy, whose lip quivered again, and who
involuntarily laid her head upon the arm of his chair
as she cried a second time, not noisily, but quietly,
softly, as if this crying did her good. For several
minutes they sat there thus, the nature of their
thoughts known only to each other, for neither spoke,
until Maddy, half ashamed of her emotions, lifted up
her head, and said:
210“I do not know what made me cry, only I have
been so happy here that I guess I thought it might go
on forever. I am afraid Miss Atherstone will not
fancy me, and I know I shall not feel as free here, after
she comes, as I do now. Then your being so good in
sending me to school, helped me to cry more, and so I
was very foolish. Don’t tell Miss Atherstone that I
cried. Tell her, though, how beautiful she is, and
how glad I am that she loves you, and is going to be
your wife.” Maddy’s voice was very steady in its
tone. She evidently meant what she said, and it
made Guy rather uncomfortable, and as Maddy was
in some way associated with his discomfort, he did
not oppose her when she arose to leave him.
Had Maddy been more a woman, and less a child,
he would have seen that it was well for her to know
of Lucy Atherstone before her feelings for Guy Remington
had assumed a definite form. As it was, she
never dreamed how near she was to loving Aikenside’s
young master; and while talking with Jessie of the
grand times they should have at school, she marveled
at that little spot of pain which was burning at her
heart, or why she should wish that Guy would not
speak of her in his letter to Lucy Atherstone.
But Guy did speak of her, frankly confessing the
211interest he felt in her, telling just how people were
beginning to talk, and asking Lucy if she cared, declaring
that, if she did, he would not see Maddy Clyde
any more than was necessary. In a little less than
four weeks there came an answer from Lucy, who,
with health somewhat improved, had returned to
England, and wrote to Guy from Switzerland, where
she expected to spend the summer, half hoping Guy
might join her there, though she could not urge it, as
her mother still insisted that she was not able to take
upon herself the duties of a wife. Then she spoke of
Maddy Clyde, saying “She was not at all jealous of
her dear Guy. Of course ignorant, meddling people,
of whom she feared there were a great many in
America, would gossip, but he was not to mind
them.” Then she said that if Maddy were willing,
she would so much like her picture, as she had a
curiosity to know just how she looked, and if Maddy
pleased, “would she write a few lines, so as not to
seem so much a stranger?”
“Darling little Lucy, I do love her very dearly,”
was Guy’s comment, as he finished reading her letter,
feeling for the moment as if her mother were a kind
of cruel ogress, bent on preventing him from being
happy. Then, as he remembered Lucy’s hope that he
212might join her, and thought how many times he had
crossed the sea to no purpose, he said, half petulantly:
“I’ve been to England for nothing times enough.
When that mother of hers says I may have her
daughter, I’ll go again, but not before. It don’t
pay.”
And crushing the letter into his pocket, he went
out upon the piazza, where were assembled Maddy,
Jessie, and Mrs. Agnes, the latter of whom had come
to Aikenside the day before.
At first she had objected to the boarding-school
arrangement, saying Jessie was too young; but Guy,
as usual, had overruled her objections, as he had those
of Grandpa Markham, and it was now a settled thing
that Maddy and Jessie both should go to New York.
Mrs. Agnes was to accompany them if she chose, and
having a general supervision of her child. This was
Guy’s plan, and it had prevailed with the fashionable
woman, who, tired of Boston, was well pleased with
the prospect of a life in New York. Guy’s interest in
Maddy was wholly inexplicable to her, unless she
explained it on the principle that in the Remington
nature there was a fondness for governesses, as had
been exemplified in her own history. That Guy
would ever marry Maddy she doubted, but the mere
213possibility of it made her set her teeth firmly together
as she thought how embarrassing it would be to
acknowledge as the mistress of Aikenside the little
girl whom she had sought to banish from her table.
Since her return she had had no opportunity of
judging for herself how matters stood, and was consequently
much relieved when, as Guy joined them, he
began at once to speak of Lucy, telling of the letter,
and her request for Maddy’s picture.
“My picture? You cannot mean that!” Maddy
exclaimed, her eyes opening wide with wonder; but
Guy did mean it, and began to plan a drive on
the morrow to Devonshire, where there was at that
time a tolerably fair artist. This, it must be remembered,
was in the day of ambrotypes, and before the
introduction of photographs.
The next day the four went down to Devonshire,
calling first upon the doctor, whose face brightened
when he heard why they had come. During the
weeks that had passed, the doctor had not been blind
to all that was passing at Aikenside, and the fear that
Guy was more interested in Maddy than he ought to
be had grown almost to a certainty. Now, however,
he was not so sure. Indeed, the fact that Guy had
told her of Lucy Atherstone would indicate that his
214suspicions were groundless, and he entered heartily
into the picture plan, saying, laughingly, that if he supposed
Miss Lucy would like his face he’d sit himself,
and bidding Guy be sure to ask her. The doctor’s gay
spirits helped to raise those of Maddy, and as that little
burning spot in her heart was fast wearing away,
she was in just the mood for a most admirable likeness.
Indeed, the artist’s delight at his achievement
was unbounded, as he declared it the very best picture
he had ever taken. It was beautiful, even Agnes
acknowledged to herself, while Jessie went into raptures,
and Maddy blushed to hear her own praises.
Guy said nothing, except to ask that Maddy should sit
again; the first was good, but a second might be better.
So Maddy sat again, succeeding quite as well as
at first, but as the artist’s preference was for the
former, it was left to be finished up, with the understanding
that Guy would call for it. As the ladies
passed down the stairs, Guy lingered behind, and when
sure they were out of hearing, said, in a low voice:
“You may as well finish both; they are too good
to be lost.”
The artist bowed, and Guy, with a half-guilty
blush, hurried down into the street, where Agnes
was waiting for him. Three hours later, Guy, in
215Mrs. Conner’s parlor, was exhibiting the finished
picture, which, in its handsome casing, was more
beautiful than ever, and more natural, if possible.
“I think I might have one,” Jessie said, half-poutingly;
then, as she remembered the second sitting,
she begged of Guy to get it for her.
But he did not seem inclined to comply with her
request, and kept putting her off, until, despairing of
success, Jessie, when alone with the doctor, tried her
powers of persuasion on him, until, in self-defense,
he crossed the street, and entering the daguerrean
gallery, asked for the remaining picture of Miss
Clyde, saying that he wished it for little Miss Remington.
“Mr. Remington took them both,” the artist replied,
commencing a dissertation on the style and
beauty of the young girl, all of which was lost upon
the doctor, who, in a kind of maze, quitted the room,
and returning to Jessie, said to her carelessly, “He
hasn’t it. You know they rub out those they do not
use. So you’ll have to do without it; and, Jessie, I
wouldn’t tell Guy I tried to get it for you.”
Jessie wondered why she must not tell Guy, but
the fact that the doctor requested her not to do so
216was sufficient. Consequently, Guy little guessed that
the doctor knew what it was he carried so carefully in
his coat pocket, looking at it often when alone in his
own room, and admiring its soft, girlish beauty, and
trying to convince himself that his sole object in
getting it was to give it to the doctor after Maddy
was gone! It would be such a surprise, and the
doctor would be so glad, that Guy finally made
himself believe that he had done a most generous
thing!
“I am going to send Lucy your picture to-day,
and as she asked that you should write her a few
lines, suppose you do it now,” Guy said to Maddy
next morning, as they were leaving the breakfast
table.
It was a sore trial to Maddy to write to Lucy
Atherstone, but she offered no remonstrance, and so,
accompanying the picture was a little note, filled
mostly with praises of Mr. Guy, and which would be
very gratifying to the unsuspecting Lucy.
Now that it was fully decided for Jessie to go to
New York with Maddy, her lessons were suspended,
and Aikenside for the time being was turned into a
vast dress-making and millinery establishment.
With his usual generosity, Guy had given Agnes
217permission to draw upon his purse for whatever was
needed, either for herself or Jessie, with the definite
understanding that Maddy should have an equal share
of dress and attention.
“It will not be necessary,” he said, “for you to
enlighten the citizens of New York with regard to
Maddy’s position. She goes there as Jessie’s equal,
and as such her wardrobe must be suitable.”
No one could live long with Maddy Clyde without
becoming interested in her, and in spite of herself
Agnes’s dislike was wearing away, particularly as of
late she had seen no signs of special attention on the
doctor’s part. He had recovered from his weakness,
she thought, and she was very gracious toward Maddy,
who, naturally forgiving, began to like her better than
she had ever deemed it possible for her to like so
proud and haughty a woman.
Down at the cottage in Honedale there were many
consultations held and many fears expressed by the
aged couple as to what would be the result of all Guy
was doing for their child. Woman-like, Grandma
Markham felt a flutter of pride in thinking that
Maddy was going to school in a big city like New
York. It gave her something to talk about with her
less fortunate neighbors, who wondered, and gossiped,
218and envied, but could not bring themselves to feel
unkindly toward the girl Maddy, who had grown up
in their midst, and who as yet was wholly unchanged
by prosperity. Grandpa Markham, on the contrary,
though pleased that Maddy should have every opportunity
for acquiring the education she so much desired,
was fearful of the result—fearful lest there might
come a time when his darling would shrink from the
relations to whom she was as sunshine to the flowers.
He knew that the difference between Aikenside and
the cottage must strike her unpleasantly every time
she came home, and he did not blame her for her
always apparent readiness to go back. That was
natural, he thought; but a life in New York, the great
city, which to the simple-hearted old man seemed
a very Babylon of iniquity, was different, and for
a time he objected to sending her there. But Guy
persuaded him, and when he heard that Agnes was
going, too, he consented, for he had faith in Agnes as
a protector. Maddy had never told him of the scene
which followed that lady’s return from Saratoga.
Indeed, Maddy never told anything but good of
Aikenside or its inmates, and so Mrs. Agnes came in
for a share of the old people’s gratitude, while even
Uncle Joseph, hearing a daily prayer for the “young
219madam,” as grandpa termed her, learned to pray for
her himself, coupling her name with that of Sarah, and
asking in his crazy way that God would “forgive
Sarah” first, and then “bless the madam—the
madam.”
A few days before Maddy’s departure, grandpa
went up to see “the madam;” anxious to know something
more than hearsay about a person to whose
care his child was to be partially intrusted. Agnes
was in her room when told who had asked for her.
Starting quickly, she turned so deadly white that
Maddy, who brought the message, flew to her side,
asking in much alarm what was the matter.
“Only a little faint. It will soon pass off,” Agnes
said, and then, dismissing Maddy, she tried to compose
herself sufficiently to pass the ordeal she so much
dreaded, and from which there was no possible escape.
Thirteen years! Had they changed her past
recognition? She hoped, she believed so, and yet,
never in her life had Agnes Remington’s heart beaten
with so much terror and apprehension as when she
entered the reception-room where Guy sat talking with
the infirm old man she remembered so well. He had
grown older, thinner, poorer looking, than when she
saw him last, but in his wrinkled face there was
220the same benignant, heavenly expression, which, when
she was better than she was now, used to remind her
of the angels. His snowy hair was parted just the
same as ever, but the mild blue eyes were dimmer, and
rested on her with no suspicious glance, as, partially
reassured, she glided across the threshold, and bowed
civilly when Guy presented grandfather to her.
A little anxious as to how her grandfather would
acquit himself, Maddy sat by, wondering why Agnes
appeared so ill at ease, and why her grandfather
started sometimes at the sound of her voice, and
looked earnestly at her.
“We’ve never met before to my knowledge, young
woman,” he said once to Agnes, “but you are mighty
like somebody, and your voice, when you talk low,
keeps makin’ me jump as if I’d heard it summers or
other.”
After that Agnes spoke in elevated tones, as if she
thought him deaf, and the mystified look of wonder
did not return to his face. Numerous were the
charges he gave to Agnes concerning Maddy, bidding
her be watchful of his child, and see that she did not
“get too much taken in with the wicked things on
Broadway!” then, as he arose to go, he laid his
trembling hand on her head, and said solemnly, “You
221are young yet, lady, and there may be a long life
before you. God bless you, then, and prosper you in
proportion as you are kind to Maddy. I’ve nothin’ to
give you nor Mr. Guy for your goodness, only my
prayers, and them you have every day. We all pray
for you, lady, Joseph and all, though I doubt me he
knows much the meaning of what he says.”
“Who, sir? What did you say?” and Agnes’s
face was scarlet, as grandpa replied, “Joseph, our unfortunate
boy; Maddy must have told you; the one
who’s taken such a shine to Jessie. He’s crazy-like,
and from the corner where he sits so much, I can hear
him whispering by the hour, sometimes of folks he
used to know, and then of you, whom he calls madam.
He says, for ten minutes on the stretch: ‘God bless
the madam—the madam—the madam!’ that’s because
you are good to Maddy. You’re sick, lady; talkin’
about crazy folks makes you faint,” grandpa added
hastily, as Agnes turned white as the dress she wore.
“No—oh, no, I’m better now,” Agnes gasped,
bowing him to the door with a feeling that she could
not breathe a moment longer in his presence.
He did not hear her faint cry of bitter remorse, as
he walked through the hall, or know she watched
him as he went slowly down the walk, stopping often
222to admire the fair blossoms which Maddy did not feel
at liberty to pick.
“He loved flowers,” Agnes whispered, as her
better nature prevailed over every other feeling, and,
starting eagerly forward, she ran after the old man
who, surprised at her evident haste, waited a little
anxiously for her to speak.
It was rather difficult to do so with Maddy’s inquiring
eyes upon her, but Agnes managed at last to
say:
“Does that crazy man like flowers—the one who
prays for the madam?”
“Yes, he used to, years ago,” grandpa replied;
and, bending down, Agnes began to pick and arrange
into a most tasteful bouquet the blossoms and buds,
growing so profusely within the borders.
“Take them to him, will you?” and her hands
shook as she passed to Grandpa Markham the gift
which would thrill poor crazy Joseph with a strange
delight, making him hold converse awhile with the
unseen presence which he called “she,” and then to
whisper blessings on the madam’s head.
Three days after this, a party of four left Aikenside,
which presented a most forlorn and cheerless
appearance to the passers-by, who were glad almost as
223the servants when, at the expiration of a week, Guy
came back and took up his olden life of solitude and
loneliness, with nothing in particular to interest him,
except his books and the letters he wrote to Lucy.
Nothing but these and the doctor’s picture—the one
designed expressly for him, and which troubled him
greatly. Believing that he had fully intended it for
the doctor, Guy felt as if it were, in a measure, stolen
property, and this made him prize it all the more.
Now that Maddy was away, Guy missed her terribly,
wondering how he had ever lived without her,
and sometimes working himself into a violent passion
against the meddlesome neighbors who would not let
her remain with him in peace, and who, now that she
was gone, did not stop their talk one whit, for the
people marveled more than ever, feeling confident
now that he was educating his own wife, and making
sundry spiteful remarks as to what he intended doing
with her relations. Guy only knew that he was very
lonely, that Lucy’s letters seemed insipid, that even
the doctor failed to interest him, as of old, and that
his greatest comfort was in looking at the bright
young face which seemed to smile so trustfully upon
him, just as Maddy had smiled upon him when, in
Madam ——’s parlor, he bade her good-bye. The
224doctor could not have that picture, he finally decided.
“Hal ought to be satisfied with getting Maddy, as of
course he will, for am I not educating her for that
very purpose?” he said to himself; and, as a kind of
atonement for what he deemed treachery to his friend,
he talked with him often of her, always taking it for
granted that when she was old enough, the doctor
would woo and win the little girl who had come
to him in his capacity of Inspector, as candidate No.
1. At first the doctor suspected him of acting a part
in order to cover up some design of his own with
regard to Maddy, and affected an indifference he did
not feel; but, as time passed on, Guy, who really
believed himself sincere, managed to make the doctor
believe so too. Consequently, the latter abandoned
his suspicions, and gave himself up to blissful dreams
of what might possibly be when Maddy should have
become the brilliant woman she was sure one
to be.
CHAPTER XV. THE HOLIDAYS.
225
The summer vacation had been spent by the
Remingtons and Maddy at the seaside, the
latter coming to the cottage for a week
before returning to her school in New York; and
as the doctor was then absent from home, she did not
meet him at all. Consequently he had not seen her
since she left Aikenside for New York. But she was
at home now for the Christmas holidays—was down at
the cottage, too; and, unusually nervous for him, the
doctor stood before the little square glass in his back
office, trying to make himself look as well as possible,
for he was going that afternoon to call upon Miss
Clyde. He was glad she was not at Aikenside; he
would rather meet her at the cottage, and he hoped he
might be fortunate enough to find her alone.
The doctor was seriously in love. He acknowledged
that now to himself, confessing, too, that with
his love was mingled a spice of jealousy, lest Guy
226Remington should be expending more thought on
Maddy Clyde than was consistent with the promised
husband of Lucy Atherstone. He wished so much to
talk with Guy about her, and yet he dreaded it; for
if the talk should confirm his suspicions there would
be no hope for him. No girl in her right mind would
prefer him to Guy Remington, and with a little sigh
the doctor was turning away from the glass, when, as
if to verify a familiar proverb, Guy himself drove up
in a most dashing equipage, the silver-tipped harness
of his high-mettled steed flashing in the wintry sunlight,
and the bright-hued lining of his fanciful robes
presenting a very gay appearance.
Guy was in the best of spirits. For an entire half
day he had tried to devise some means of getting
Maddy up to Aikenside. It was quite too bad for
her to spend the whole vacation at the cottage, as she
seemed likely to do. He knew she was lonely there;
that the bare floor and low, dark walls affected her unpleasantly.
He had seen this in her face when he bade
her good-bye, for he had carried her down to the cottage
himself, and now he was going after her. There
was to be a party at Aikenside; the very first since Guy
was its master. The neighbors had said he was too
proud to invite them, but they should say so no more.
227The house was to be thrown open in honor of Guy’s
birthday, and all who were at all desirable guests,
were to be bidden to the festival. First on the list
was the doctor, who, remembering how averse Guy
was to large parties, wondered at the proceedings.
But Guy was all engaged in the matter, and after
telling who were to be invited, added rather indifferently,
“I’m going down to Honedale after Maddy.
It’s better for her to be with us a day or two beforehand.
You’ve seen her, of course.”
No, the doctor had not; he was just going there,
he said, in a tone so full of sad disappointment, that
Guy detected it at once, and asked if anything was
the matter.
“Guy,” the doctor continued, sitting down by his
friend, “I remember once your making me your confidant
about Lucy. You remember it too?”
“Yes, why?” Guy replied, beginning to feel
strangely uncomfortable as he half divined what was
coming next.
Latterly Guy had stopped telling the doctor that
he was educating Maddy for him. Indeed, he did not
talk of her at all, and the doctor might have fancied
her out of his mind but for the frequent visits to New
York, which Guy found it absolutely necessary to
228make. Guy did not himself understand the state of
his own feelings with regard to Maddy, but if compelled
to explain them they would have been something
as follows: He fully expected to marry Lucy
Atherstone; the possibility that he should not had
never occurred to him, but that was no reason why
Maddy Clyde need be married for these many years.
She was very young yet; there was time enough for
her to think of marrying when she was twenty-five,
and in the meanwhile it would be splendid to have
her at Aikenside as Lucy’s friend. Nothing could be
nicer, and Guy did not care to have this little arrangement
spoiled. But that the doctor had an idea of
spoiling it, he had not a doubt, particularly after the
doctor’s next remark.
“I have not seen Maddy since last spring, you
know. Is she very much improved?”
“Yes, very much. There is no more stylish-looking
girl to be seen on Broadway than Maddy Clyde,”
and Guy shook down his pantaloons a little awkwardly.
“Well, is she as handsome as she used to be, and
as childish in her manner?” the doctor asked; and
Guy replied:
“I took her to the opera once, last month, and the
229many admiring glances cast at our box proved pretty
positively that Maddy’s beauty was not of the ordinary
kind.”
“The opera!” the doctor exclaimed; “Maddy
Clyde at the opera! What would her grandfather
say? He is very puritanical in his notions.”
“Yes, I know; and so is Maddy, too. She wrote
and obtained his consent before she’d go with me.
He won’t let her go to a theater anyhow. He considers
that in the same block with the bottomless
pit.”
Here an interval of silence ensued, and then the
doctor began again:
“Guy, you told me once you were educating
Maddy Clyde for me, and I tried to make you think I
didn’t care; but I did, oh, so much. Guy, laugh at
me if you please. I cannot blame you if you do; but
the fact is, I believe I’ve loved Maddy Clyde ever since
she was so sick. At all events, I love her now, and I
was going down there this very afternoon to tell her
so. She’s old enough. She was sixteen last October,
the—the——”
“Tenth day,” Guy responded, thus showing that
he, too, was keeping Maddy’s age, even to a day.
“Yes, the tenth day,” resumed the doctor. “There
230are many years’ difference between us, but if she feels
at all as I do she will not care, Guy;” and the doctor
began to talk earnestly: “I’ll be candid with you,
and say that you have sometimes made my heart ache
a little.”
“I!” and Guy’s face was crimson, while the doctor
continued:
“Yes, and I beg your pardon for it; but let me
ask you one question, and upon its answer will depend
my future course with regard to Maddy: You are
true to Lucy?”
Guy felt the blood prickling at the roots of
his hair, but he answered truthfully, as he believed:
“Yes, true as steel;” while the generous thought
came over him that he would further the doctor’s
plans all he possibly could.
“Then I am satisfied,” the doctor rejoined; “and as
you have rather assumed the position of Maddy’s guardian
or brother, I ask your permission to offer her the
love which, whether she accepts it or not, is hers.”
Guy had never fell a sharper pang than that which
now thrilled through every nerve, but he would
not prove false to the friend confiding in him, and he
answered calmly.
“You have my consent; but, Doc, better put it off
231till you see her at Aikenside. There’s no chance
at the cottage, with those three old people. I wonder
she don’t go wild. I’m sure I should.”
Guy was growing rather savage about something
but the doctor did not mind; and grasping his arm as
he arose, he said:
“And you’ll manage it for me, Guy? You know
how. I don’t. You’ll contrive for me to see her
alone, and maybe say a word beforehand in my
favor.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll manage it. I’ll fix it right. Don’t
forget, day after to-morrow night. The Cutlers will
be there, and, by the way, Maria has grown to be a
splendid girl. She fancied you once, you know. Old
Cutler is worth half a million.” And Guy tore himself
away from the doctor, who, now that the ice was
broken, would like to have talked of Maddy forever.
But Guy was not thus inclined, and in a mood not
extremely amiable, he threw himself into his sleigh
and went dashing down toward Honedale. For some
unaccountable reason, he was not now one bit interested
in the party, and, were it not that a few of the
invitations were issued, he would have been tempted
to give it up. Guy did not know what ailed him.
He only felt as if somebody had been meddling with
232his plans, and had he been in the habit of swearing
he would probably have sworn: but as he was not he
contented himself with driving like a second Jehu
until he reached Honedale, where a pair of soft,
brown eyes smiled up into his face, and a little warm
hand was clasped in his, as Maddy came out to the
gate to meet him.
She was very glad to see him. The cottage, with
its humble adornings, did seem lonely, and almost
dreary, after the life and bustle of New York, and
Maddy had cried more than once to think how hard
and wicked she must be growing when her home had
ceased to be the dear old place she once loved so well.
She had been there five days, and notwithstanding the
efforts of her grandparents to entertain her, each day
had seemed a week in its duration. Neither the doctor
nor Guy had been near her, and Maddy had made
herself believe that the former was sadly remiss in his
duty, inasmuch as he had not seen her for so long.
He had been in the habit of calling every week, her
grandmother said, and this did not tend to increase
her amiability. Why didn’t he come now when he
knew she was at home? Didn’t he wish to see her?
If not, she could be indifferent too, and when they did
meet, she could show him how little she cared!
233At Guy she was not particularly piqued. She did
not take his attentions as a matter of course, and did
not think it very strange that since bringing her there
on the night of her return from New York, he had not
once called upon her; still, she thought more of him,
if possible, than of the doctor, during those five days,
and was rather anxious to see him. She had something
to show him—a letter from Lucy Atherstone, who
had gradually come to be her regular correspondent,
and whom Maddy had learned to love with all the
intensity of her girlhood. To her ardent imagination
Lucy Atherstone was but a little lower than the angels,
and the pure, sweet thoughts contained in every letter
were doing almost as much toward molding her character
as Grandpa Markham’s prayers and constant
teachings. Maddy did not know it, but it was these
letters from Lucy which kept her from loving Guy
Remington. She could not for a moment associate
him with herself when she so constantly thought of
him as the husband of another, and that other Lucy
Atherstone. Not for worlds would Maddy have
wronged the gentle creature who wrote to her so confidingly
of Guy, envying her in that she could so
often see his face and hear his voice, while his betrothed
was separated from him by many thousand
234miles. Little by little Maddy had learned that Lucy’s
mother was averse to the match, and had always been;
that she had in her mind an English lord, who would
make her daughter “My lady;” and this was the
secret of her so long deferring her daughter’s marriage.
In her last letter to Maddy, however, Lucy had
written with more than her usual spirit that she
should come into possession of her property on her
twenty-fifth birthday and be really her own mistress.
She should then feel at liberty to act for herself, and
she launched out into joyful anticipations of the time
when she should come to Aikenside and meet her dear
Maddy Clyde. Feeling that Guy would be glad to
see this letter, Maddy had all the morning been wishing
he would come; and when she saw him at the
gate she ran out to meet him, her eyes and face sparkling
with eager joy as she suffered him to retain her
hand, while she said, “I am so glad to see you, Mr.
Remington. I almost thought you had forgotten me
at Aikenside.”
Guy began to exclaim against any one’s forgetting
her, and also to express his pleasure at finding her so
glad to see him, when Maddy interrupted him with,
“Oh, it’s not that; I’ve something to show you—something
which will make you very happy. I had a
235letter from Lucy last night. When she is twenty-five
she will be her own mistress, you know, and she means
to be married in spite of her mother—she says—let me
see—” and drawing from her bosom Lucy’s letter,
Maddy read, “‘I do not intend to fail in filial obedience,
but I have tired dear Guy’s patience long
enough, and as soon as I am of age I shall marry
him.’ Isn’t it nice?” and returning the letter to its
hiding-place, Maddy scooped up in her hand and ate a
quantity of the snow beside the path.
“Yes, it is very nice,” Guy admitted, but there
was a shadow on his brow as he followed Maddy into
the cottage, where the lunatic, who had been watching
them from the window, shook his head doubtfully and
said, “Too young, too young for you, young man.
You can’t have our Sunshine, if you want her.”
“Hush, Uncle Joseph,” Maddy whispered, softly,
taking his arm and laying it around her neck. “Mr.
Remington don’t want me. He is engaged to a beautiful
English girl across the sea.”
Low as Maddy’s words were, Guy heard them, as
well as the crazy man’s reply, “Engagements have
been broken.”
That was the first time the possibility had ever
entered Guy’s brain that his engagement might be
236broken, provided he wished it, which he did not, he
said to himself positively. Lucy loved him, he loved
Lucy, and that was enough; so in a kind of abstracted
manner, arising from the fact that he was calculating
how long it would be before Lucy was twenty-five, he
began to talk with Maddy, asking how she had spent
her time, and so forth. This reminded Maddy of the
doctor, who, she said, had not been to see her at all.
“He was coming this morning,” Guy rejoined,
“but I persuaded him to defer his call until you were
at Aikenside. I have come to take you back with me,
as we are to have a party day after to-morrow evening,
and I wish you to be present.”
Maddy had never attended a big party in her life,
and her eyes sparkled from mere anticipation as she
looked appealingly to her grandfather, who, though
classing parties with the pomps and vanities from
which he would shield his child, still remembered that
he once was young; that, fifty years ago he, too, like
Maddy, wanted “to see the folly of it,” and not take
the mere word of older people that in every festival
scene there was a pitfall, strewn over so thickly with
roses that it was ofttimes hard to tell just where
its boundary line commenced. Besides that, grandpa
had faith in Guy, and so his consent was granted, and
237Maddy was soon on her way to Aikenside, which presented
a gayer, busier appearance than she had seen
there before. Jessie was wild with delight, dragging
forth at once the pink dress which she was to wear,
and whispering to Maddy that Guy had bought a blue
silk for her, and that Sarah Jones was at that moment
fashioning it after a dress left there by Maddy
the previous summer.
“Mother said plain white muslin was more appropriate
for a young girl, but brother Guy said no; the
blue silk would be useful after the party; it was what
you needed; and so he bought it and paid two dollars
a yard, but it’s a secret until you are called to try it on.
Isn’t Guy splendid?”
He was indeed splendid. Maddy thought, wondering
why he was so kind to her, and if it would be so
when Lucy came. The dress fitted admirably, though
Maddy thought her grandfather would say it was too
low in the neck, but Sarah overruled her objections,
assisted by Guy, who, when the dress was complete
and tried on for the last time, was called in by Jessie
to see if “Maddy must have a piece sewed on, as she
suggested.” The neck was au fait, Guy said, laughing
at Maddy for being so old-maidish, and saying
when he saw how really distressed she seemed, that he
238would provide her with something to relieve the bareness
of which she complained.
“Oh, I know, I saw, I peeked in the box,” Jessie
began, but Guy put his hand over the little tattler’s
mouth, bidding her keep the result of her peeking to
herself.
And for once Jessie succeeded in doing so, although
she several times set Maddy to guessing what
it was Guy had for her in a box! As the size of the
box was not mentioned, Maddy had fully made up her
mind to a shawl or scarf, and was proportionately
disappointed when, as she was dressing for the party,
there was sent up to her room a small round box,
scarcely large enough to hold an apple, much less a
small scarf. The present proved to be a pair of plain
but heavy bracelets, and a most exquisitely wrought
chain of gold, to which was appended a beautiful
pearl cross, the whole accompanied with the words,
“From Guy.”
Jessie was in ecstacies again. Clasping the ornaments
on Maddy’s neck and arms, she danced around
her, declaring there never was anything more beautiful,
or anybody so pretty as Maddy was in her party
dress. Maddy was fond of jewelry—and felt a flush
of gratified pride, or vanity, or satisfaction, whichever
239one chooses to call it, as she glanced at herself in the
mirror and remembered the time when, riding with
the doctor, she had met Mrs. Agnes, with golden
bracelets flashing on her arms, and wished she might
one day wear something like them. The day had
come sooner than she had anticipated, but Maddy was
not so happy in possession of the coveted ornaments
as she had thought she should be. It seemed to her
that Guy ought not to have given them to her, that it
was improper for her to keep them, and that both
Mrs. Noah and Agnes thought so, too. She wished
she knew exactly what was right; and then, remembering
that Guy had said the doctor was expected
early, she decided to ask his opinion on the subject
and abide by it.
At first Agnes had cared but little about the party,
affecting to despise the people in their immediate
neighborhood; but her spirits rose at last; and when
her toilet was completed, she shone resplendent in lace
and diamonds and curls, managing to retain through
all a certain simplicity of dress appropriate to the
hostess. But beautiful as Agnes was, she felt in her
jealous heart that there was about Maddy Clyde an
attraction she did not possess. Guy saw it too,
and while complimenting his pretty mother-in-law,
240kept his eyes fixed admiringly on Maddy, who started
him into certain unpleasant remembrances by asking
if the doctor had come yet.
“No—yes—there he is now;” and Guy looked into
the hall, where the doctor’s voice was heard inquiring
for him.
“I want to see him a minute, alone, please. There’s
something I wish to ask him.” And, unmindful of
Agnes’s darkened frown, or Guy’s look of wonder,
Maddy darted from the room, and ran hastily down to
the hall where the doctor stood, waiting for Guy, not
for her.
He had not expected to meet her thus, or to see her
thus, and the sight of her, grown so tall, so womanly
and beautiful, almost took his breath away. And yet,
as he stood with her hand in his, and surveyed her
from head to foot, he felt that he would rather have
her as she was when a dainty frill shaded her pale,
wasted face, when the snowy ruffle was fastened high
about her throat, and the cotton bands were buttoned
about her wrists, where golden ones now were shining.
The doctor had never forgotten Maddy as she was
then, the very embodiment, he thought, of helpless
purity. The little sick girl, so dear to him then, was
growing away from him now; and these adornings,
241which marked the budding woman, seemed to remove
her from him and place her nearer to Guy, whose
bride should wear silk and jewels, just as Maddy did.
She was very glad to see him, she said, asking in
the same breath why he had not been to the cottage,
if she had not grown tall, and if he thought her improved
with living in a city?
“One question at a time, if you please,” he said,
drawing her a little more into the shadow of the hall,
where they would be less observed by any one passing
through it.
Maddy did not wait for him to answer, so eager
was she to unburden her mind and know if she ought
to keep the costly presents, at which she knew he was
looking.
“If he remembers his unpaid bill, he must consider
me mighty mean,” she thought; and then, with her
usual frankness, she told him of the perplexity, and
asked his opinion.
“It would displease Mr. Guy very much if I were
to give them back,” she said; “but it is hardly right
for me to accept them, is it?”
The doctor did not say she ought not to wear the
ornaments, though he longed to tear them from her
242arms and neck and throw them anywhere, he cared not
where, so they freed her wholly from Guy.
“They are very becoming,” he said. “You would
not look as well without them; so you had better
wear them to-night, and to-morrow, if you will grant
me an interview, I will talk with you further.”
He said all this to gain the desired interview for
which Guy was to prepare her. That he had not done so
he felt assured, but he could not be angry with him, as
he came smilingly toward them, asking if they had
talked privacy long enough, and glancing rather
curiously at Maddy’s face. There was nothing in its
expression to disturb him, and, offering her his arm,
he led her back to the drawing-rooms, where Agnes
was smoothing down the folds of her dress, preparatory
to receiving the guests just descending the stairs. It
was a brilliant scene which Aikenside presented that
night, and amid it all Agnes bore herself like a queen;
while Jessie, with her sunny face and flowing hair,
came in for a full share of attention. But amid the
gay throng there was none so fair or beautiful as
Maddy, who deported herself with as much ease and
grace as if she had all her life been accustomed to just
such occasions as this. At a distance the doctor
watched her, telling several who she was, and once
243resenting, by both look and manner, a remark made by
Maria Cutler, to the effect that she was nobody but
Mrs. Remington’s governess, a poor girl whom Guy
had taken a fancy to educate out of charity.
“He seems very fond of his charity pupil, upon
my word. He scarcely leaves her neighborhood at
all,” whispered old Mrs. Cutler, the mother of Maria,
who, Guy said, once fancied Dr. Holbrook, and who
had no particular objections to fancying him now,
provided it could be reciprocal.
But the doctor was only intent on Maddy, knowing
always just where she was standing, just who was
talking to her, and just how far from her Guy was.
He knew, too, when the latter was urging her to
sing; and, managing to get nearer, heard her object
that no one cared to hear her.
“But I do; I wish it,” Guy replied in that tone
which people generally obeyed; and casting a half-frightened
look at the sea of faces around her, Maddy
suffered him to lead her to the piano, sitting quite still
while he found what he wished her to play.
It was his favorite song, and one which brought
out Maddy’s voice in its various modulations.
“Oh, please, Mr. Remington, anything but that
song. I cannot do it justice;” Maddy whispered,
244pleadingly, but Guy answered resolutely, “You can.”
There was no appeal after this, but a resigned,
obedient look, which made the doctor gnash his teeth
as he leaned upon the instrument. What right had
Guy to command Maddy Clyde, and why should she
obey? and yet, as the doctor glanced at Guy, he felt
that, were he in Maddy’s place, he should have done
the same.
“No girl can resist Guy Remington,” he thought.
“I’m glad there’s a Lucy Atherstone over the sea.”
And with a smile of encouragement for Maddy, who
was pale with nervous timidity, he listened while her
sweet, bird-like voice trembled for a moment with
fear, and then, gaining confidence from its own sound,
filled the room with melody, and made those who had
wandered off to other parts of the building hasten
back to see who was singing.
Maria Cutler had presided at the piano earlier in
the evening, as had one or two other young ladies, but
to none of these had Guy paid half the attention he
did to Maddy, staying constantly by her, holding her
fan, turning the leaves of music, and dictating what
she should play.
“There’s devotion,” tittered a miss in long ringlets;
“but she really does play well,” and she appealed
245to Maria Cutler, who answered, “Yes, she keeps good
time, and I should think might play for a dance. I
mean to ask her,” and going up to Guy she said, “I
wish to speak to—to—Jessie’s governess. Introduce
me, please.”
Guy waited till Maddy was through, and then
gave the desired introduction. In a tone not wholly
free from superciliousness, Miss Cutler said:
“Can you play a waltz or polka, Miss Clyde? We
are aching to exercise our feet—that is, if Mr. Remington
does not object. I dare say old Mr. and Mrs.
Deacon Crane will start for home instanter at the first
note of anything as wicked as Money Musk.”
When the party was first talked about, Agnes had
proposed that it be a regular dancing party, with suitable
music provided for it. But Guy, who knew how
such a thing would shock the puritanical prejudices of
many of the people of Sommerville, who held dancing
as a sin, said, “No—he wished all his guests to enjoy
themselves. So he would not hire music, or have
dancing as a rule. If any of the young people wished
to amuse themselves that way, they were welcome to
do so, and he presumed some one of their number
could play sufficiently well for quadrilles, and possibly
waltzing.” So, when appealed to on the subject by
246Miss Cutler, he replied, “Certainly; dance by all
means if you wish to, and Maddy is willing to play.”
Maddy bowed, and struck into a spirited waltz,
which set many of the young people to whirling in
circles, and produced the result which Maria so much
desired, viz.: it took Guy away from the piano, for he
could not mistake her evident wish to have him as a
partner, and with his arm around her waist he was
soon moving rapidly from that part of the room, leaving
only the doctor to watch Maddy’s fingers as they
flew over the keys. Maddy never thought of being
tired. She enjoyed the excitement, and was glad she
could do something towards entertaining Guy’s guests.
But Guy did not forget her for an instant. Through
all the mazes of the giddy dance, he had her before
his eye, seeing not the clouds of lace and muslin encircled
by his arm, but the little figure in blue sitting
so patiently at the piano until he knew she must be
tired, and determined to release her. As it chanced,
Maria was on his arm, and drawing her nearer to
Maddy, he said, “Your fingers ache by this time, I
am sure. It is wrong to trouble you longer. Agnes
will take your place while you try a quadrille—I shall
find you a partner.”
“Oh, thank you,” Maddy answered. “I am not
247tired in the least. I had as lief play till morning,
provided they are satisfied with my time, and my
stock of music holds out.”
“But it is not fair for one to do all the playing;
besides, I shall ask you to dance with me by-and-bye.”
Maddy’s face crimsoned for an instant, and then in
a low voice she said, “I thank you, but I must
decline.”
“Maddy!” Guy exclaimed, in tones more indicative
of reproach than expostulation.
There were tears in Maddy’s eyes, and Maria Cutler,
watching her, was vexed to see how beautiful was
the expression of her face as she answered frankly, “I
have never told you that grandpa objected to my
taking dancing lessons when I wrote to him about it.
He does not like me to dance.”
“A saint!” Maria uttered under her breath, smiling
contemptuously as she made a movement to leave
the piano, hoping Guy would follow her.
But he did not at once. Standing for a moment
irresolute, while he looked curiously at Maddy, he
said at last:
“Of course I interfere with no one’s scruples of
that kind, but I cannot allow you to wear yourself out
for our amusement.”
248“I like to play—please let me,” was Maddy’s
reply; and, as the set upon the floor were waiting for
her, she turned to the instrument, while Guy mechanically
offered his arm to Maria, who was waiting for
him, and sauntered toward the green room.
“What a blue old ignoramus that grandfather
must be to object to dancing, don’t you think so?”
Maria said, laughing a little spitefully, and feeling secretly
glad that Maddy had refused, and secretly
angry at Guy for seeming to care so much.
“Say,” she continued, as Guy did not answer her,
“don’t you think it a sign that something is lacking
in brains or education, when a person sets up that
dancing is wicked?”
Guy would have taken Maddy’s side then, whatever
he might have thought, and he replied:
“Not lack of brains, certainly. Education and
circumstances have much to do with one’s views upon
that subject. For my part, I like to see people consistent.
Now, this old ignoramus, as you call him,
lays great stress on pomp and vanities, and when I
asked him once what he meant by them, he mentioned
dancing in particular as one of the things which you
church members promise to renounce;” and Guy
bowed towards Maria, who, knowing that she was one
249of the church members referred to, winced perceptibly.
“But this girl—this Maddy. There’s no reason
why she should decline,” she said; and Guy replied:
“Respect for her grandfather, in her case, seems to
be stronger than respect for a higher power in some
other cases.”
“It’s just as wicked to play for dancing as ’tis to
dance,” Maria remarked, impatiently; while Guy
rejoined:
“That is very possible; but I presume Maddy has
never seen it in that light, which makes a difference;”
and the two retraced their steps to the rooms where
the gay revelers were still tripping to Maddy’s
music.
After several ineffectual efforts Agnes had succeeded
in enticing the doctor away from the piano,
and thus there was no one near to see how at last the
bright color began to fade from Maddy’s cheeks as
the notes before her ran together, and the keys
assumed the form of one huge key which she could not
manage. There was a blur before her eyes, a buzzing
in her ears, and just as the dancers were entering
heart and soul into the merits of a popular polka,
there was a sudden pause in the music, a crash among
250the keys, and a faint cry, which to those nearest to her
sounded very much like “Mr. Guy,” as Maddy fell
forward with her face upon the piano. It was hard
telling which carried her from the room, the doctor or
Guy, or which face of the three was the whitest.
Guy’s was the most frightened, for the doctor knew
she had only fainted, while Guy, struck with the marble
rigidity of the face so recently flushed with excitement,
said at first, “She’s dead!” while over him there
flashed a feeling that life with Maddy dead would be
desolate indeed. But Maddy was not dead, and Guy,
when he went back to his guests, carried the news that
she had recovered from her faint, which she kindly
ascribed to the heat of the rooms, instead of fatigue
from playing so long. The doctor was with her and
she was doing as well as could be expected, he said,
thinking within himself how he wished they would go
home, and wondering what attraction there was there,
now that Maddy’s place was vacant. Guy was a
vastly miserable man by the time the last guest had
bidden him good-night, and he had heard for the hundred-and-fiftieth
time what a delightful evening it had
been. Politeness required that he should look to the
very last as pleasant and unconcerned as if up-stairs
there were no little sick girl, all alone undoubtedly
251with Dr. Holbrook, whom he mentally styled a “lucky
dog,” in that he was not obliged to appear again in
the parlors, unless he chose.
The doctor knew Maddy did not require his presence
after the first half hour, but he insisted upon her
being sent to bed, and then went frequently to her
door, until assured by Mrs. Noah that she was sleeping
soundly, and would, if let alone, be well as ever on the
morrow; a prediction which proved true, for when at a
late hour next morning the family met at the breakfast
table, Maddy’s was the brightest, freshest face of the
whole, not even excepting Jessie’s. Maddy, too, was
delighted with the party, declaring that nothing but
pleasurable excitement and heat had made her faint;
and then, with all the interest which young girls
usually attach to fainting fits, she asked how she
looked and how she acted, and if she didn’t appear
very ridiculous, and how she got out of the room, saying
the only thing she remembered after falling was a
sensation as if she were being torn in two.
“That’s it,” cried Jessie, who readily volunteered
the desired information. “Brother Guy was ’way off
with Maria Cutler, and doctor was with mamma, but
both ran so fast, and both tried to take you up. I
think Miss Cutler real hateful, for she said, mean like,
252‘Do you see them pull her, as if it was of the slightest
consequence which carried her out?’”
“Jessie!” Guy interposed sternly; while the
doctor, who had spent the night at Aikenside, looked
disapprovingly at the little girl, who subsided into
silence after saying, in an under-tone, “I do think
she’s hateful, and that isn’t all she said either about
Maddy!”
It was rather uncomfortable at the table after
that, and rather quiet too, as Maddy did not care to
ask anything more concerning her faint, while the
others were not disposed to talk.
Breakfast over, the two young men repaired to
the library, where Guy indulged in his cigar, while
the doctor fidgeted for a time, and then broke out
abruptly:
“I say, Guy, have you said anything to her
about—well, about me, you know?”
“Why, no, I’ve hardly had a chance; and then,
again, I concluded it better for each one to speak for
himself;” and carelessly knocking the ashes from his
half-smoked cigar, Guy leaned back in his chair, with
his eyes, and, to all appearance, thoughts, wholly
intent upon the curls of smoke rising above his head.
“Guy, if you were not engaged, I should be
253tempted to think you wanted Maddy Clyde yourself,”
the doctor suddenly exclaimed, confronting Guy, who,
still watching the rings of smoke, answered with the
most provoking coolness, “You should?”
“Yes, I should; and I am not certain but you do
as it is. Guy,” and the doctor grew very earnest in
his manner, “if you do care for Maddy Clyde, and she
for you, pray tell me so before I make a fool of myself.”
“Doctor,” returned Guy, throwing the remains of
his cigar into the grate and folding his hands on his
head, “you desire that I be frank, and I will. I like
Maddy Clyde very much—more, indeed, than any girl
I ever met, except Lucy. Had I never seen her—Lucy,
I mean—I cannot tell how I should feel toward
Maddy. The chances are, however, that much as I
admire her, I should not make her my wife, even if
she were willing. But I have seen Lucy. I am engaged
to be married. I shall keep that engagement,
and if you have feared me at all as a rival, you may
fear me no longer. I do not stand between you and
Maddy Clyde.”
Guy believed that he was saying the truth, notwithstanding
that his heart beat faster than its wont
and his voice was a little thick. It was doubtful
254whether he would marry Maddy Clyde, if he could.
By nature and education he was very proud, and the
inmates of the red cottage would have been an obstacle
to be surmounted by his pride. He knew they
were far, far better than himself; but, from his
earliest remembrance, he had been taught that blood
and family and position were all-important; that by
virtue of them Remington was a name of which to be
proud; that his father’s foolish marriage with a
pretty governess was the first misalliance ever known
in the family, and that he was not likely to follow
that example was a point fully established in his own
mind. He might admire Maddy very much, and,
perhaps, build castles of what might possibly have
been, had she been in his sphere of life; but, should
he verily think of making her his wife, the olden
pride would certainly come up as a barrier between
them. Guy could not explain all this to the doctor,
who would have been tempted to knock him down, if
he had; but he succeeded in quieting his fears, and
even suggested bringing Maddy there, if the doctor
wished to know his fate that morning.
“I hear her now—I’ll call her,” he said; and
opening the door, he spoke to Maddy, who was just
passing through the hall, “Dr. Holbrook wishes to
255see you,” he said, as Maddy came up to him; and,
holding the door for her to enter, he saw her take the
seat he had just vacated. Then, closing it upon them,
he walked away, thinking that last night’s party, or
something, had produced a bad effect on him making
him blue and wretched, just as he should suppose
a criminal would feel when about to be executed.
CHAPTER XVI. THE DOCTOR AND MADDY.
256
Now that they were alone, the doctor’s
courage forsook him, and he could only
stammer out some common-place remarks
about the party, asking how Maddy had enjoyed it,
and if she was sure she had entirely recovered from
the effects of her fainting fit. He was not getting on
at all, and it was impossible for him to say anything as
he had meant to say it. Why couldn’t she help him,
instead of looking so unsuspiciously at him with those
large, bright eyes? Didn’t she know how dear she
was to him? He should think she might. She ought
to have divined it ere this; and if so, why didn’t she
blush, or do something?
At last she came to his aid by saying, “You promised
to tell me about the bracelets and necklace,
whether I ought to keep them.”
“Yes, oh, yes, I believe I did.” And getting
up from his chair, the doctor began to walk the floor,
the better to hide his confusion. “Yes, the bracelets.
257You looked very pretty in them, Maddy, very; but
you are always pretty—ahem—yes. If you were
engaged to Guy, I should say it was proper; but if
not, why, I don’t know; the fact is, Maddy, I am not
quite certain what I’m saying, so you must excuse me.
I almost hated you that day you sent the note, telling
me you were coming to be examined; but I had not
seen you then. I did not know how, after a while—a
very little while—I should in all probability—well, I
did; I changed my mind, and I—I guess you have not
the slightest idea what I mean.” And stopping suddenly,
he confronted the astonished Maddy, who
replied:
“Not the slightest, unless you are going crazy.”
She could in no other way account for his strange
conduct, and she sat staring at him while he continued:
“I told you once that when I wanted my bill I’d
let you know. I’d ask for pay. I want it now. I
present my bill.”
With a scared, miserable feeling, Maddy listened
to him, wondering where she could get the money, if
it were possible for her grandfather to raise it, and
how much her entire wardrobe would bring, suppose
she should sell it! The bill had not troubled her latterly,
258for she had fallen into a way of believing that
the doctor would wait until she was graduated and
could earn it by teaching. Nothing could be more
inopportune than for him to present it now; and with
a half-stifled sob she began to speak, but he silenced
her by a gesture, and sitting down beside her, said, in
a voice more natural than the one with which he had
at first addressed her:
“Maddy, I know you have no money. It is not
that I want, Maddy; I want—I want—you.”
He bent down over her now, for her face was hidden
in her hands, all sense of sight shut out, all sense
of hearing, too, save the words he was pouring into
her ear—words which burned their way into her
heart, making it throb for a single moment with gratified
pride, and then grow heavy as lead as she knew
how impossible it was for her to pay the debt in the
way which he desired.
“I can’t, doctor; oh, I can’t!” she sobbed. “I
never dreamed of this; never supposed you could
want me for your wife. I’m only a little girl—only
sixteen last October—but I’m so sorry for you, who
have been so kind. If I only could love you as you
deserve. I do love you, too; but not the way you
mean. I cannot be your wife; no, doctor, I cannot.”
259She was sobbing piteously, and in his concern for
her the doctor forgot somewhat the stunning blow he
had received.
“Don’t, Maddy!” he said, drawing her trembling
form closely to him. “Don’t be so distressed. I did
not much think you’d tell me yes, and I was a fool to
ask you. I am too old; but, Maddy, Guy is as old as
I am.”
The doctor did not know why he said this, unless
in the first keenness of his disappointment there was a
satisfaction in telling her that the objection to his age
would apply also to Guy. But it did not affect
Maddy in the least, or give her the slightest inkling
of his meaning. He saw it did not, and the pain was
less to bear. Still, he would know certainly if he had
a rival, and he said to her:
“Do you love some one else, Maddy? Is another
preferred before me, and is that the reason why you
cannot love me?”
“No,” Maddy answered, through her tears.
“There is no one else. Whom should I love, unless
it were you? I know nobody but Mr. Remington.”
That name touched a sore, aching chord in the
260doctor’s heart, but he gave no sign of the jealousy,
which had troubled him, and for a moment there was
silence in the room; then, as the doctor began to
realize that Maddy had refused him, there awoke
within him a more intense desire to win her than he
had ever felt before. He would not give her up without
another effort, and he pleaded again for her love,
going over all the past, and telling of the interest
awakened when first she came to him that April afternoon,
almost two years ago; then of the little sick
girl who had grown so into the heart never before
affected in the least by womankind; and lastly, of the
beautiful woman, as he called her, sitting beside him
now in all the freshness of her young womanhood.
Maddy, as she listened, felt for him a strange kind of
a pity, a wish to do his bidding if she only could, and
why shouldn’t she? Girls had married those whom
they did not love, and been tolerably happy with them
too. Perhaps she could be so with the doctor.
There was everything about him to respect, and
much which she could love. Should she try? There
was a great lump in Maddy’s throat as she tried to
speak, but it cleared away, and she said very sadly
but very earnestly, too:
“Dr. Holbrook, would you like me to say yes with
261my lips when all the time there was something at my
heart tugging to answer no?”
This was not at all what Maddy meant to say, but
the words were born of her extreme truthfulness, and
the doctor thus learned the nature of the struggle
which he saw was going on.
“No, Maddy, I would not have you say yes unless
your heart was in it,” he answered, while he tried to
smile upon the tearful face looking up so sorrowfully
at him.
But the smile was a forlorn one, and there came
instead a tear as he thought how dear was this girl
who never could be his. Maddy saw the tear, and, as
if she were a child, wiped it from his cheek; then, in
tones which never faltered, she told him it might be
that in time she should learn to love him. She would
try so hard, she would think of him always as her
promised husband, and by that means should learn at
last not to shrink from taking him for such. It might
be ever so long, and perhaps she should be twenty or
more, but some time in the future she should feel differently.
Was he satisfied, and would he wait?
Her little hand was resting on his shoulder, but he
did not mind its soft pressure or know that it was
there, so strong was the temptation to accept that
262half-made promise. But the doctor was too noble, too
unselfish, to bind Maddy to himself unless she were
wholly willing, and he said to her that if she did not
love him now she probably never would. She could
not make a love. She need not try, as it would only
result in her own unhappiness. They would be
friends just as they always had been, and none need
know of what had passed between them, except Guy.
“I must tell him,” the doctor said, “because he knew
that I was going to ask you.”
Maddy could not explain why it was that she felt
glad the doctor would tell Guy. She did not analyze
any of her feelings, or stop to ask why she should care
to have Guy Remington know the answer she had
given Dr. Holbrook. He was going to him now, she
was sure, for he arose to leave her, saying he might
not see her again before she returned to New York.
She did not mention his bill. That was among the
bye-gones, a thing never again to be talked about;
and offering him her hand, she looked for an instant
earnestly into his face, and then, without a word, hurried
from the room, while the doctor, with a sad,
heavy heart, went in quest of Guy.
“Refused you, did you say?” and Guy’s face certainly
263looked brighter than it had before since he left
the doctor with Maddy Clyde.
“Yes, refused me, as I might have known she
would,” was the doctor’s reply, spoken so naturally
that Guy looked up quickly to see if he really did not
care.
But the expression of the face belied the calmness
of the voice; and, touched with genuine pity, Guy
asked the cause of the refusal—“Preference for any
one else, or what?”
“No, there was no one whom she preferred. She
merely did not like me well enough to be my wife,
that was all,” the doctor said, and then he tried to
talk of something else; but it would not do. The
wound was yet too fresh and sore to be covered up,
and in spite of himself the bearded chin quivered and
the manly voice shook as he bade good-bye to Guy,
and then went galloping down the avenue.
Great was the consternation among the doctor’s
patients when it was known that their pet physician—the
one in whose skill they had so much confidence—was
going to Europe, where in Paris he could perfect
himself in his profession. Some cried, and among
them Agnes; some said he knew enough already;
264some tried to dissuade him from his purpose; some
wondered at the sudden start, while only two knew
exactly why he was going—Guy and Maddy; the
former approving his decision, and lending his influence
to make his tour abroad as pleasant as possible;
and the latter weeping bitterly as she thought how she
had sent him away, and that if aught befell him on
the sea or in that distant land, she would be held
responsible. Once there came over her the wild impulse
to bid him stay, to say that she would be his
wife; but, before the rash act was done, Guy came
down to the cottage, and Maddy’s resolution gave way
at once.
It would be difficult to tell the exact nature of
Maddy’s liking for Guy at that time. Had he offered
himself to her, she would probably have refused him
even more promptly than she did the doctor; for, to
all intents and purposes, he was, in her estimation, the
husband of Lucy Atherstone. As such, there was no
harm in making him her paragon of all male excellence;
and Guy would have felt flattered, could he
have known how much he was in that young girl’s
mind. But now for a few days he had a rival, for
Maddy’s thoughts were all given to the doctor, who
came down to see her once before starting for Europe.
265She did not cry while he was there, but her voice was
strange and hoarse as she gave him messages for Lucy
Atherstone; and all that day her face was white and
sad, as are the faces of those who come back from
burying their dead.
Only once after the party did she go up to Aikenside,
and then, summoning all her fortitude, she gave
back to Guy the bracelets and the necklace, telling
him she ought not to wear them; that ornaments as
rich as these were not for her; that her grandmother
did not wish her to keep them, and he must take them
back. Guy saw she was in earnest, and much against
his will he received again the ornaments he had been
so happy in purchasing.
“They will do for Jessie when she was older,”
Maddy said; but Guy thought it very doubtful
whether Jessie would ever have them. They were
something he had bought for Maddy, something she
had worn, and as such they were too sacred to give to
another. So he laid them away beside the picture
guarded so carefully from every one.
Two weeks afterward Aikenside presented again a
desolate, shut-up appearance, for Agnes, Maddy and
Jessie had returned to New York; Agnes to continue
the siege which, in despair of winning the doctor, she
266had commenced against a rich old bachelor, who had
a house on Madison square; and Maddy to her books,
which ere long obliterated, in a measure, the bitter
memory of all that had transpired during her winter
vacation.
CHAPTER XVII. WOMANHOOD.
267
Two years pass quickly, particularly at
school, and to Maddy Clyde, talking with
her companions of the coming holidays, it
seemed hardly possible that two whole years were
gone since the eventful vacation when Dr. Holbrook
had so startled her by offering her his hand. He was
in Europe still, and another name than his was on the
little office in Mrs. Conner’s yard. To Maddy he now
wrote frequently; friendly, familiar letters, such as a
brother might write, never referring to the past, but
telling her whatever he thought would interest and
please her. Occasionally, at first, and more frequently
afterwards, he spoke of Margaret Atherstone, Lucy’s
younger sister, a brilliant, beautiful girl, who reminded
him, he said, of Maddy, only she was saucier, and
more of a tease; not at all like Lucy, whom he described
as something perfectly angelic. Her twenty-fifth
birthday found her on a sick bed, with Dr. Holbrook
268in attendance, and this was the reason given
why the marriage between herself and Guy was again
deferred. There had been many weeks of pain, succeeded
by long, weary months of languor, and during
all this time the doctor had been with her as the
family physician, while Margaret also had been constantly
in attendance.
But Lucy was much better now. She could sit up
all day, and even walk a little distance, assisted by the
doctor and Margaret, whose name had come to be
almost as familiar to Maddy as was that of Lucy.
And Maddy, in thinking of Margaret, sometimes wondered
“if—,” but never went any further than that.
Neither did she ask Guy a word about her, though she
knew he must have seen her. She did not say much
to him of Lucy, but she wondered why he did not go
for her, and wanted to talk with him about it, but he
was so changed that she dared not. He was not
sociable, as of old, and Agnes did not hesitate to call
him cross, while Jessie complained that he never
romped or played with her now, but sat all day long
in a deep reverie of some kind.
On this account Maddy did not look forward to
the coming vacation as joyfully as she would otherwise
have done. Still, it was always pleasant going
269home, and she sat talking with her young friends of
all they expected to do, when a servant entered the
room, and glancing over the group of girls, singled
Maddy out, saying, as he placed an unsealed envelope
in her hand, “A telegram for Miss Clyde.”
There was a blur before Maddy’s eyes, so that at
first she could not see clearly, and Jessie, climbing on
the bench beside her read aloud:
“Your grandmother is dying. Come at once.
Agnes and Jessie will stay till next week.
Guy Remington.”
It was impossible to go that afternoon, but with
the earliest dawn Maddy was up, and, unmindful of the
snow falling so rapidly, started on that sad journey
home. It was the first genuine storm of the season,
and it seemed resolved on making amends for past
neglect sweeping in furious gusts against the windows,
sifting down in thick masses from the leaden
sky, and so impeding the progress of the train that the
chill wintry night had closed gloomily in ere the Sommerville
station was reached, and Maddy, weary and
dispirited, stepped out upon the platform, glancing
anxiously around for the usual omnibus, which she
had little hope would be there on such a night. If
270not, what would she do? This had been the burden
of her thoughts for the last few hours, for she could
not expect Guy to send out his horses in this fearful
storm, much less to be there himself. But Guy was
there, and it was his voice which first greeted her as
she stood half-blinded by the snow, uncertain what
she must do next.
“Ah, Mr. Remington, I didn’t expect this. I am
so glad, and how kind it was of you to wait for me!”
she exclaimed, her voice expressing her delight, and
amply repaying the young man, who had not been
very patient or happy through the six long hours
of waiting he had endured.
But he was both happy and patient now, with
Maddy’s hand in his, and pressing it very gently he
led her into the ladies’ room; then making her sit
down before the fire, he brushed her snowy garments
himself, and dashing a few flakes from her disordered
hair, told her what she so eagerly wished to know.
Her grandmother had had a paralytic stroke, and the
only word she had uttered since was “Maddy.” Guy
had not been down himself, but had sent Mrs. Noah
as soon as Farmer Green had brought the news. She
was there yet, the storm having prevented her return.
“And grandma?” Maddy gasped, fixing her eyes
271wistfully upon him. “You do not think her
dead?”
No, Guy did not, and stooping he asked if he
should not remove from the little feet resting on the
stove-hearth the over-shoes, so full of melting snow.
Maddy cared nothing for her shoes or herself just
then. She hardly knew that Guy was taking them
off, much less that as he bent beside her, her hand lay
lightly upon his shoulders as she continued her questionings.
“She is not dead, you say; but do you think—does
anybody think she’ll die? Your telegram said
‘dying.’”
Maddy was not to be deceived, and thinking it
best to be frank with her, Guy told her that the physician,
whom he had taken pains to see on his way to
the depot, had said there was no hope. Old age and
an impaired constitution precluded the possibility of
recovery, but he trusted she might live till the young
lady came.
“She must—she will! Oh, grandma, why did I
ever leave her?” and burying her face in her hands
Maddy cried passionately, while the last three years
of her life passed in rapid review before her mind—years
which she had spent in luxurious ease, leaving
272her grandmother to toil in the humble cottage, and
die without one parting word for her.
The feeling that perhaps she had been guilty of
neglect was the bitterest of all, and Maddy wept on,
unmindful of Guy’s attempts to soothe her. At last,
as she heard a clock in the adjoining room strike
eight, she started up, exclaiming, “I have staid too
long. I must go now. Is there any conveyance
here?”
“But, Maddy,” Guy rejoined, “you cannot go to-night.
The roads between here and Honedale are one
unbroken snow-bank. It would take hours to break
through; besides, you are too tired. You need rest,
and must come with me to Aikenside, where you are
expected, for when I found how late the train would
be, I sent word to have your room and the parlors
warmed, and a nice hot supper ready for us. You’ll
surely go with me, if I think best.”
Guy’s manner was more like a lover than a friend,
but Maddy was in no state to remark it. She only
felt an intense desire to go home, and turning a deaf
ear to all he could urge, replied;
“You don’t know how dear grandma is to me, or
you would not ask me to stay. She’s all the mother I
273ever knew, and I must go. Think, would you stay if
the one you loved best was dying?”
“But the one I love best is not dying, so I can
reason clearly, Maddy.”
Here Guy checked himself, and listened while
Maddy asked again if there was no conveyance there
as usual.
“None but mine,” said Guy, while Maddy continued
faintly:
“And you are afraid it will kill your horses?”
“No, it would only fatigue them greatly. It’s for
you I fear. You’ve borne enough to-day.”
“Then Mr. Remington, oh, please send me. I
shall die at Aikenside. John will drive me, I know.
He used to like me. I’ll ask him,” and Maddy was
going in quest of the Aikenside coachman, when Guy
held her back, and said:
“John will go if I bid him. But you, Maddy, if I
thought it was safe.”
“It is. Oh, let me go,” and Maddy grasped both
his hands beseechingly.
If there was a man who could resist the eloquent
appeal of Maddy’s eyes at that moment, the man was
not Guy Remington, and leaving her alone, he went
274to John, asking him if it would be possible to get
through to Honedale that night.
John shook his head decidedly, but when Guy
explained Maddy’s distress and anxiety, the negro
began to relent, particularly as he saw his young
master too was interested.
“It’ll kill them horses,” he said; “but mabby
that’s nothin’ to please the girl.”
“If we only had runners now, instead of wheels,
John,” Guy said, after a moment’s reflection. “Drive
back to Aikenside as fast as possible, and change the
carriage for a covered sleigh. Leave the grays at
home and take a pair of farm horses. They can endure
more. Tell Flora to send my traveling shawl—Miss
Clyde may need it—and an extra carriage robe,
and a bottle of wine, and my buckskin gloves, and
bring Tom with you, and a snow-shovel, we may have
to dig.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” and tying his muffler about
his throat, John started off through the storm, his
mind a confused medley of ideas, the main points of
which were, bottles of wine, snow-shovels, and the
fact that his master was either crazy or in love.
Meanwhile, with the prospect of going home,
Maddy had grown quiet, and did not refuse the
275supper of buttered toast, muffins, steak, and hot
coffee, which Guy ordered from the small hotel just
in rear of the depot. Tired, nervous, and almost helpless,
she allowed Guy himself to prepare the coffee,
taking it from his hand and drinking it at his bidding
as obediently as a child. There was a feeling of delicious
rest in being cared for thus, and but for the
dying one at Honedale she would have enjoyed it
vastly. As it was, however, she never for a moment
forgot her grandmother—though she did forget, in a
measure, her anxiety, and was able to think how exceedingly
kind Guy was. He was like what he used
to be, she thought, only kinder; and thinking it was
because she was in trouble she accepted all his little
attentions willingly, feeling how pleasant it was to
have him there, and thinking once with a half shudder
of the long, cold ride before her, when Guy would no
longer be present, and also of the dreary home where
death might possibly be a guest ere she could reach it.
It was after nine when John appeared, his crisp
wool powdered with snow, which clung to his outer
garments, and literally covered his dark cloth cap.
“The snow was mighty deep,” he said, bowing to
Maddy, “and the wind was getting colder. It was a
276hard time Miss Clyde would have, and hadn’t she
better wait?”
No, Maddy could not wait, and standing up she
suffered Guy to wrap her cloak about her, and fasten
more securely the long, warm scarf she wore around
her neck.
“Drive close to the platform,” he said to John
and the covered sleigh was soon brought to the point
designated. “Now then, Maddy, I won’t let you run
the risk of covering your feet with snow. I shall
carry you myself,” Guy said, and before Maddy was
fully aware of his intentions, he had her in his arms,
and was bearing her to the sleigh.
Very carefully he drew the soft, warm robe about
her, shielding her as well as he could from the cold;
then pulling his own fur collar about his ears, he
sprang in beside her, and, closing the door behind
him, bade John drive on.
“But, Mr. Remington,” Maddy exclaimed in much
surprise, “surely you are not going, too? You must
not! It is asking too much. It is more than I
expected. Please don’t go!”
“Would you rather I should not—that is, aside
from any inconvenience it may be to me—would you
rather go alone?” Guy asked; and Maddy replied:
277“Oh, no. I was dreading the long ride, but did
not dream of your going. You will shorten it so
much.”
“Then I shall be paid for going,” was Guy’s
response, as he drew still more closely around her the
fancy robe.
The roads, though badly drifted in some places,
were not as bad as Guy had feared, and the strong
horses kept steadily on; while Maddy, growing more
and more fatigued, at last fell away to sleep, and
ceased to answer Guy. For a time he watched her
drooping head, and then, carefully drawing it to him,
made it rest upon his shoulder, while he wound his
arm around her slight figure, and so supported her.
He knew she was sleeping quietly, by her gentle
breathings; and once or twice he involuntarily passed
his hand caressingly over her soft, round cheek, feeling
the blood tingle to his finger tips as he thought of
his position there, with Maddy Clyde sleeping in his
arms. What would Lucy say could she see him?
And the doctor, with his strict ideas of right and
wrong, would he object? Guy did not know, and,
with his usual independence, he did not care. At
least he said to himself he did not care; and so, banishing
both the doctor and Lucy from his mind, he
278abandoned himself to the happiness of the moment—a
singular kind of happiness, inasmuch as it merely consisted
in the fact that Maddy Clyde’s young head was
pillowed on his bosom, and that, by bending down, he
could feel her sweet breath on his face. Occasionally
there flitted across Guy’s mind a vague, uneasy consciousness
that though the act was, under the circumstances,
well enough, the feelings which prompted it
were not such as either the doctor or Lucy would
approve. But they were far away; they would never
know unless he told them, as he probably should, of
this ride on that wintry night; this ride, which seemed
to him so short that he scarcely believed his senses
when, without once having been overturned or called
upon to use the shovels so thoughtfully provided, the
carriage suddenly came to a halt, and he knew by the
dim light shining through the low window that the
red cottage was reached.
Grandma Markham was dying, but she knew
Maddy, and the palsied lips worked painfully as they
attempted to utter the loved name; while her wasted
face lighted up with eager joy as Maddy’s arms were
twined about her neck, and she felt Maddy’s kisses on
her cheek and brow. Could she not speak? Would
279she never speak again, Maddy asked despairingly, and
her grandfather replied:
“Never, most likely. The only thing she’s said
since the shock was to call your name. She’s missed
you despatly this winter back; more than ever before,
I think. So have we all, but we would not send for
you—Mr. Guy said you were learning so fast.”
“Oh, grandpa, why didn’t you? I would have
come so willingly,” and for an instant Maddy’s eyes
flashed reproachfully upon the recreant Guy, standing
aloof from the little group gathered about the bed, his
arms folded together, and a moody look upon his
face.
He was thinking of what had not yet entered
Maddy’s mind, thinking of the future—Maddy’s
future, when the aged form upon the bed should be
gone, and the two comparatively helpless men be left
alone.
“But it shall not be. The sacrifice is far too
great. I can prevent it, and I will,” he muttered to
himself, as he turned to watch the gray dawn breaking
in the east.
Guy was a puzzle to himself. He would not admit
that during the past year his liking for Maddy Clyde
had grown to be something stronger than mere friendship,
280nor yet that his feelings toward Lucy had under
gone a change, prompting him not to go to her when
she was sick, and not to be as sorry as he ought that
the marriage was again deferred. Lucy had no suspicion
of the change, and her child-like trust in him
was the anchor which held him still true to her in
intentions at least, if not in reality. He knew from
her letters how much she had learned to like Maddy
Clyde, and so, he argued, there was no harm in his
liking her, too. She was a splendid girl, and it seemed
a pity that her lot should have been so humbly cast.
This was usually the drift of his thoughts in connection
with her; and now, as he stood there in that
cottage, Maddy’s home, they recurred to him with
tenfold intensity, for he foresaw that a struggle was
before him if he rescued Maddy as he meant to do
from her approaching fate.
No such thoughts, however, intruded themselves
on Maddy’s mind. She did not look away from the
present, except it were at the past, in which she feared
she had erred by leaving her grandmother too much
alone. But to her passionate appeals for forgiveness,
if she ever had neglected the dying one, there came
back only loving looks and mute caresses, the aged
281hand smoothing lovingly the bowed head, or pressing
fondly the girlish cheeks.
With the coming of daylight, however, there was
a change; and Maddy, listening intently, heard what
sounded like her name. The tied tongue was loosed
for a little, and in tones scarcely articulate, the disciple
who for long years had served her Heavenly
Father faithfully, bore testimony to the blessed truth
that God’s promises to those who love Him are not
mere promises—that He will go with them through
the river of death, disarming the fainting soul of
every fear, and making the dying bed the gate of
Heaven. This tribute to the Saviour was her first
thought, while the second was a blessing for her
darling, a charge to seek the narrow way now in life’s
early morning. Disjointed sentences they were, but
Maddy understood them all, treasuring up every
word even to the last, the words so painfully uttered;
“You—will—care—and—comfort——”
She did not say whom, but Maddy knew whom she
meant; and without then realizing the magnitude of
the act, virtually accepted the burden from which
Guy was so anxious to save her.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE BURDEN.
282
Grandma Markham was dead, and the
covered sleigh, which late in the afternoon
plowed its way heavily back to Aikenside
carried only Mrs. Noah, who, with her forehead tied
up in knots, sat back among the cushions, thinking not
of the peaceful dead, gone forever to the rest which
remains for the people of God, but of the wayward
Guy, who had resisted all her efforts to persuade him
to return with her, instead of staying where he was
not needed, and where his presence was a restraint to
all save one, and that one Maddy, for whose sake he
staid.
“She’d be vummed,” the indignant old lady said,
“if she would not write to Lucy herself if Guy did
not quit such doin’s;” and thus resolving she kept on
her way, while the object of her wrath was, it may
be, more than half repenting of his decision to stay,
283inasmuch as he began to have an unpleasant consciousness
of being in everybody’s way.
In the first hour of Maddy’s bereavement he had
not spoken with her, but had kept himself aloof from
the room where, with her grandfather and Uncle
Joseph, she sat, holding the poor aching head of the
latter in her lap and trying to speak a word of consolation
to the old, broken-hearted man, whose hand was
grasped in hers. But Maddy knew he was there.
She could hear his voice each time he spoke to Mrs.
Noah, and that made the desolation easier to bear.
She did not look forward to the time when he would
be gone; and when at last he told her he was going,
she started quickly, and with a gush of tears, exclaimed:
“No, no! oh, no!”
“Maddy,” Guy whispered, bending over the
strange trio, “would you rather I should stay? Will
it be pleasanter for you if I do?”
“Yes—I don’t know. I guess it would not be so
lonely. Oh, it’s terrible to have grandmother dead!”
was Maddy’s response; after which Guy would have
staid if a whole regiment of Mrs. Noahs had confronted
him instead of one.
Maddy wished it; that was reason enough for him;
and giving a few directions to John, he staid, thereby
284disconcerting the neighboring women who came in to
perform the last offices for the dead, and who wished
the young man from Aikenside was anywhere but
there, criticising all their movements, as they vainly
fancied he was. But Guy thought only of Maddy,
watching her so carefully that more than one meaning
glance was exchanged between the women, who, even
over the inanimate form of the dead, spoke together
of what might possibly occur, and wondering what
would be the effect on Grandpa Markham and Uncle
Joseph. Who would take care of them? And then,
in case Maddy should feel it her duty to stay there, as
they half-hoped she would, they fell to pitying the
young girl, who seemed now so wholly unfitted for the
burden.
To Maddy there came no definite thought of the
future during the two days that white, rigid form lay
in the cottage; but when, at last, the deep grave made
for Grandma Markham was occupied, and the lounge
in the little front room was empty—when the Aikenside
carriage, which had been sent down for the
mourners, had driven away, taking both Guy and Mrs.
Noah—when the neighbors, too, had gone, leaving
only herself and the little girl who had been hired as
help sitting by the fire, with the grandfather and the
285imbecile Uncle Joseph—then it was that she first
began to feel the pressure of the burden—began to
ask herself if she could live thus always, or at least for
as long as either of the two helpless men were spared.
Maddy was young, and the world as she had seen it
was very bright and fair, brighter far than a life of
laborious toil, and for a while the idea that the latter
alternative must be accepted made her dizzy and
faint.
As if divining her thoughts, the poor old grandfather,
in his prayers that night, asked in trembling
tones, which showed how much he felt what he was
saying, that God would guide his darling in all she
did, and give her wisdom to make the proper decision;
that if it were best she might be happy there with
them, but if not, “Oh, Father, Father!” he sobbed,
“help me and Joseph to bear it.” He could pray no
more aloud, and the gray head remained bowed down
upon his chair, while Uncle Joseph, in his crazy way,
took up the theme, begging like a very child that
Maddy might be inclined to stay—that no young man
with curling hair, a diamond cross, and smell of musk,
might be permitted to come near her with enticing
looks, but that she might stay as she was and die an
old maid forever! This was the substance of Uncle
286Joseph’s prayer, which set the little hired girl to tittering,
and would have wrung a smile from Maddy
herself had she not felt all the strange petition implied.
With the waywardness natural to people in his
condition, Uncle Joseph that night turned to Maddy
for the little services his sister had formerly rendered,
and which, since her illness, Grandpa Markham had
done, and would willingly do still. But Joseph refused
to let him. Maddy must untie his cravat,
unbutton his vest, and take off his shoes, and after he
was in bed, Maddy must sit by his side holding his
hand until he fell away to sleep. And Maddy did it
cheerfully, soothing him into quiet, and keeping back
her own choking sorrow for the sake of comforting
him. Then, when this task was done, she sought her
grandfather, still sitting before the kitchen fire and
evidently waiting for her. The little hired girl had
retired, and thus there was no barrier to free conversation
between them.
“Maddy,” the old man said, “come sit close by
me, where I can look into your face, while we talk
over what must be done.”
With a half shudder, Maddy drew a stool to her
grandfather’s feet, and resting her head upon his
287knee, listened while he talked to her of the future,
and told her all her grandmother had done; told
of his own helplessness; of the trial it was to care for
Uncle Joseph, and then in faltering tones asked who
was going to look after them now. “We can’t live
here alone, Maddy. We can’t. We’re old and weak,
and want some one to lean on. Oh, why didn’t God
take us with her, Joseph and me, and that would
leave you free, to go back to the school, and the life
which I know is pleasanter than to stay here with us.
Oh, Maddy! it comforts me to look at you—to hear
your voice, to know that though I don’t see you every
minute, you are somewhere, and by and by you’ll
come in. I shan’t live long, and maybe Joseph won’t.
God’s promise is to them who honor father and
mother. It’ll be hard for you to stay, harder than it
was once; but, Maddy! stay with me, stay with
me!—stay with your old grandpa!”
In his earnestness he grasped her arm, as if he
thus would hold her, while the tears rained over his
wrinkled face. For a moment Maddy made no response.
She had no intention of leaving him, but the
burden was pressing heavily and her tongue refused
to move. Maddy then was a stranger to the religion
which was sustaining her grandfather in his great
288trouble, but the teachings of her childhood had not
been in vain. She was God’s covenant child. His
protecting presence was over and around her, moving
her to the right. New York, with its gay sights; her
school, where in another year she was to graduate; the
trip to the Catskills which Guy had promised Mrs.
Agnes, Jessie and herself; Aikenside, with its luxurious
ease—all these must be given up, while, worse
than all the rest, Guy, too, must be given up. He
would not come to Honedale often; the place was not
to his taste, and in time he would cease to care for
her as he cared for her now. “Oh, that would be
dreadful!” she groaned aloud, while her thoughts
went backward to that night ride in the snow-storm,
and the numberless attentions he had paid then. She
should never ride with him again—never; and Maddy
moaned bitterly, as she began to realize for the first
time how much she liked Guy Remington, and how
the giving him up and his society was the hardest
part of all. But Maddy had a brave young heart,
and at last, winding her arms around her grandfather’s
neck, she whispered: “I will not leave you,
grandpa. I’ll stay in grandmother’s place.”
Surely Heaven would answer the blessings which
the delighted old man whispered over the young girl,
289taking so cheerfully the burden from which many
would have shrunk.
With her grandfather’s hand upon her head,
Maddy could almost feel that the blessing was descending;
but in her own little room, where she had
lain sick for so many weary weeks, her courage began
to give way, and the burden, magnified tenfold by her
nervous weakness, looked heavier than she could bear.
How could she stay there, going through each day
with the same routine of literal drudgery—drudgery
which would not end until the two for whom she
made the sacrifice were dead.
“Oh, is there no way to escape, no help?” she
moaned, as she tossed from side to side. “Must my
life be wasted here? Surely——”
Maddy did not finish the sentence, for something
checked the words of repining, and she seemed to
hear again her grandfather’s voice as it repeated the
promise to those who keep with their whole souls the
fifth commandment.
“I will, I will,” she cried, while into her heart
there crept an intense longing for the love of him who
alone could make her task a light one. “If I were
good, like grandma, I could bear everything,” she
thought, and turning upon her pillow, Maddy prayed
290an earnest, childish prayer, that God would help her
do right; that he would take from her the proud
spirit which rebelled against her lot because of its
loneliness, that pride and love of her own ease and
advancement in preference to other’s good might all
be subdued; in short, that she might be God’s child,
walking where he appointed her to walk without a
murmur, and doing cheerfully his will.
Aikenside, and school, and the Catskill mountains
were easier to abandon after that prayer; but when
she thought of Guy, the fiercest, sharpest pang she
had ever felt shot through her heart, making her cry
out so quickly that the little hired girl who shared her
bed moved as if about to waken; but Maddy lay very
quiet until all was still again, when, turning a second
time to God, she tried to pray, tried to give up what
to her was the dearest idol, but she could not say the
words, and ere she knew what she was doing she
found herself asking that Guy should not forsake her.
“Let him come,” she sobbed, “let Guy come sometimes
to see me.”
Once the tempter whispered to her, that had she
accepted Dr. Holbrook she would have been spared
all this, but Maddy turned a deaf ear to that suggestion.
Dr. Holbrook was too noble a man to have
291an unloving wife, and not for a moment did she
repent of her decision with regard to him. She
almost knew he would say now that she was right in
refusing him, and right in staying there, as she must.
Thoughts of the doctor quieted her, she believed, not
knowing that Heaven was already owning its submissive
child, and breathing upon it a soothing benediction.
The moan of the winter wind and the sound of
the snow beating against her little window ceased to
annoy her. Heaven, happiness, Aikenside, and Guy,
all seemed blended into one great good, just within
her reach, and when the long clock below stairs struck
three she did not hear it, but with the tear-stains
upon her face she lay nestled among the pillows,
dreaming that her grandmother had come back from
the bright world of glory to bless her darling child.
It was broad noon ere Maddy awoke, and, starting
up, she looked about her in bewilderment, wondering
where she was and what agency had been at work in her
room, transforming it from the cold, comfortless apartment
she had entered the previous night, into the cheery-looking
chamber, with a warm fire blazing in the tiny
fire-place, a rug spread down upon the hearth, a rocking-chair
drawn up before it, and all traces of the little
hired girl as completely obliterated as if she had never
292been. During her grandmother’s illness, Maddy’s
room had been left to the care of the hired girl,
Nettie, and it wore a neglected, rude aspect, which
had grated on Maddy’s finer feelings, and made everything
so uninviting. But this morning all was
changed. Some skillful hand had been busy there
while she slept, and Maddy was wondering who
it could be, when the door opened cautiously and
Flora’s good-humored face looked in—Flora from
Aikenside. Maddy knew now to whom she was
indebted for all this comfort, and with a cry of joy
she welcomed the girl, whose very presence brought
back something of the life with which she had parted
forever.
“Flora,” she exclaimed, “how came you here, and
did you make this fire, and arrange the room for
me?”
“Yes, I made the fire,” Flora replied, “and fixed
up the things a little, hustlin’ that young one’s goods
out of here; because it was not fit for you to be
sleeping with her. Mr. Remington was angry enough
when he found it out.”
“Mr. Remington, Flora? How should he know of
our sleeping arrangements?” Maddy asked, but Flora
evaded a direct reply, saying, “There were enough
293ways for things to get to Aikenside;” then continuing,
“How tired you must be, Miss Maddy,
to sleep so sound as never to hear me at all, though to
be sure I tried to be still as a mouse. But let me help
you dress. It’s nearly noon, and you must be hungry.
I’ve got your breakfast all ready.”
“Thank you, Flora, I can dress myself,” Maddy
said, stepping out upon the floor, and feeling that the
world was not so dark as it had seemed to her when
last night she came up to her chamber.
God was comforting her already, and as she made
her simple toilet, she tried to thank Him for His goodness,
and ask for grace to make her what she ought
to be.
“You have not yet told me why you came here,”
she said to Flora, who was busy making her bed; and
who replied, “It’s Mr. Remington’s work. He thought
I’d better come, as you would need help to get things
set to rights, so you could go back to school.”
Maddy felt her heart coming up in her throat,
but she answered calmly, “Mr. Remington is very
kind—so are you all; but, Flora, I am not going back
to school.”
“Not going back!” and Flora stopped her bed
294making, while she stared blankly at Maddy. “What
are you going to do?”
“Stay here and take care of grandpa,” Maddy
aid, bathing her face and neck in the cold water,
which could not cool the feverish heat she felt spreading
all over them.
“Stay here! You are crazy, Miss Maddy! ’Tain’t
no place for a girl like you, and Mr. Remington never
will suffer it, I know,” Flora rejoined, as she resumed
her work, thinking she “should die to be moped up in
that nutshell of a house.”
With a little sigh as she foresaw the opposition
she should probably meet with from Guy, Maddy
went on with her toilet, which was soon completed, as
it did not take long to arrange the dark calico dress
and plain linen collar which she wore. She was not
as fresh-looking as usual that morning, for excitement
and fatigue had lent a paleness to her cheek, and a
languor to her whole appearance, but Flora, who
glanced anxiously after her as she went out, muttered
to herself, “She was never more beautiful, and I
don’t wonder an atom that Mr. Guy thinks so much of
her.”
The kitchen was in perfect order, for Flora had
been busy there as elsewhere. The kettle was boiling
295on the stove, while two or three little covered dishes
were ranged upon the hearth, as if waiting for some
one. Grandpa Markham had gone out, but Uncle
Joseph sat in his accustomed corner, rubbing his
hands when he saw Maddy, and nodding mysteriously
toward the front room, the door of which was open,
so that Maddy could hear the fire crackling on the
hearth.
“Go in, go in,” Uncle Joseph said, waving his
hand in that direction. “My Lord Governor is in
there waiting for you. He won’t let me spit on the
floor any more as Martha did, and I’ve swallowed so
much that I’m almost choked.”
Continual spitting was one of Uncle Joseph’s
worst habits, and as his sister had indulged him in it,
it had become a source of great annoyance to every
one. Thinking that Uncle Joseph referred to her
grandfather, and feeling glad that the latter had
attempted a reform, she entered the room known at
the cottage as the parlor, where the rag carpet and
the six cane-seated chairs and the Boston rocker were
kept, and where now the little round table was nicely
laid for two, while, cozily seated in the rocking-chair,
reading last night’s paper, and looking very handsome
and happy, was Guy!
296When Maddy prayed that he might come and see
her she did not expect an answer so soon, and she
started back in much surprise, while Guy came easily
forward to greet her, asking how she was, and telling
her she looked tired and thin; then making her take
the chair he had vacated, he stood over her, while he
continued:
“I have taken some liberties, you see, and have
made myself quite at home. I knew how unaccustomed
you were to the duties of a house, and as I saw
that girl was wholly incompetent, I denied myself at
least two hours’ sleep this morning for the sake of
getting here early, bringing Flora with me and a few
things which I thought would be for your comfort.
You must excuse me, but Flora looked so cold when
she came down from your chamber, where I sent her
to see how you were, that with your grandfather’s
permission I ordered a fire to be kindled there. I
hope you found it comfortable. This house is very
cold.”
He kept talking, and Maddy, in a delicious kind of
bewilderment, listened to him, wondering if ever
before there was a person so kind and good as Guy.
And Guy was doing great violence to his pride by
being there as he was, but he could do anything for
297Maddy, and so he had forced down his pride, trying
for her sake to make the cottage as pleasant as possible.
With Flora to assist he had succeeded wonderfully,
and was really enjoying it himself. At first
Maddy could not thank him, her heart was so full,
but Guy was satisfied with the expression of her face,
and calling Flora he bade her serve the breakfast.
“You know my habits,” he said, smilingly, as he
took a seat at the table, “and breakfasting at daylight,
as I did, has given me an appetite; so with your
permission, I’ll carve this nice bit of steak for you,
while you pour me a cup of coffee, some of Mrs.
Noah’s best. She”—Guy was going to say, “sent it,”
but as no stretch of the imagination could construe
her “calling him a fool” into sending Maddy coffee
he added instead, “I brought it from Aikenside,
together with this strawberry jelly, of which I remember
you were fond;” and he helped Maddy lavishly
from the fanciful jelly-jar which yesterday was adorning
the sweetmeat closet at Aikenside.
How chatty and social he was, trying to cheer
Maddy up and make her forget that such a thing as
death had so lately found entrance there. He talked
of Jessie, of Aikenside, of the pleasant time they
would have during the vacation, and of the next term
298at school, when Maddy, as one of the graduating class
would not be kept in as strictly as heretofore, but
allowed to see more of the city. Maddy felt as if she
should die for the pain tugging at her heart, while she
listened to him and knew that the pictures he was
drawing were not for her. Her place was there; and
after the breakfast was over and Flora had cleared the
dishes away, she shut the door, so that they might be
alone, and then standing before Guy, she told him of
her resolution, begging of him to help her and not
make it harder to bear by devising means for her to
escape what she felt to be an imperative duty. Guy
had expected something like this and was prepared, as
he thought, to combat all her arguments; so when she
had finished, he replied that of course he did not wish
to interfere with her duty, but there might be a question
as to what really was her duty, and it seemed to
him he was better able to judge of that than herself.
It was not right for her to bury herself there, where
another could do as well. Her superior talents were
given to her to improve, and how could she improve
them in Honedale? besides, her grandfather did
not expect her to stay. Guy had talked with him
while she was asleep, and the matter was all arranged;
a competent woman was to be hired to take charge of
299the domestic arrangements, and if it seemed desirable,
two should be procured; anything to leave Maddy
free.
“And grandpa consented to this willingly?”
Maddy said, feeling a throb of pleasure at thoughts of
release. But Guy could not answer that the grandfather
consented willingly.
“He thinks it best. When he comes back you can
ask him yourself,” he said, just as Uncle Joseph
opened the door and brought their interview to a
close by asking very meekly, “If it would please the
Lord Governor to let him spit!”
The blood rushed at once to Maddy’s face, and she
could not repress a smile, while Guy laughed aloud,
saying to her softly: “For your sake, I tried my skill
to stop what I knew must annoy you. Pardon me if
I did wrong!” then turning to Uncle Joseph, he gave
the desired permission, together with the promise of a
handsome spittoon, which should be sent down on the
morrow. With a bow Uncle Joseph turned away,
muttering to himself, “High doings, now Martha’s
gone; but new lords, new laws. I trust he’s not
going to live here;” and very slyly he asked Flora if
the Lord Governor had brought his things?
At this point Grandpa Markham came in, and to
300him Guy appealed at once to know if he were not
willing for Maddy to return to school.
“I said she might if she thought best,” was the
reply, spoken so sadly that Maddy’s arms were at once
twined round the old man’s neck, while she said
to him:
“Tell me honestly which you prefer. I’d like
so much to go to school, but I am not sure I should be
happy there, knowing how lonely you were at home.
Say, grandpa, which do you prefer?” and Maddy tried
to speak playfully, though her heart-beats were almost
audible as she waited for the answer.
Grandpa could not deceive her. “He wanted his
darling sorely, and he wanted her to be happy,” he
said. Perhaps they could get on just as well without
her. When Mr. Guy was talking it looked as if they
might, he made it all so plain, but the sight of Maddy
was a comfort. She was all he had left. Maybe he
shouldn’t live long to pester her, and if he didn’t,
wouldn’t she always feel better for having staid with
her old grandpa to the last?
He looked very pale and thin, and his hair was
as white as snow. He could not live many years, and,
turning resolutely from Guy, who, so long as he held
her eye, controlled her, Maddy said:
301“I’ve chosen once for all. I’ll stay with grandpa
till he dies,” and with a convulsive sob she clung
tightly to his neck, as if fearful that without such
hold on him her resolution would give way.
It was in vain that Guy strove to change Maddy’s
decision, and late in the afternoon he rode back to
Aikenside a disappointed man, with, however, the
feeling that Maddy had done right, and that he
respected her all the more for withstanding the
temptation.
CHAPTER XIX. LIFE AT THE COTTAGE.
302
It was arranged that Flora should, for the
present at least, remain at the cottage, and
Maddy accepted the kindness gratefully.
She had become so much accustomed to being cared
for by Guy that she almost looked upon it as a matter
of course, and did not think what others might possibly
say, but when, in as delicate a manner as possible,
Guy suggested furnishing the cottage in better style,
even proposing to modernize it entirely in the spring,
Maddy objected at once. They were already indebted
to him for more than they could ever pay, she
said, and she would not suffer it. So Guy submitted,
though it grated upon his sense of the beautiful and
refined terribly, to see Maddy amid so humble surroundings.
Twice a week, and sometimes oftener, he
rode down to Honedale, and Maddy felt that without
these visits life would hardly have been endurable.
During the vacation Jessie spent a part of the
303time with her, but Agnes resolutely resisted all Guy’s
entreaties that she should at least call on Maddy, who
had expressed a wish to see her, and who, on account
of her grandfather’s health, and the childishness with
which Uncle Joseph clung to her, could not well go
up to Aikenside. Agnes would not go to Honedale
neither would she give other reasons for the obstinacy
than the apparently foolish one that she did not wish
to see a crazy man, as such things made her nervous.
Still, she did not object to Jessie’s going as often as
she liked, and she sent by her many little delicacies
from Aikenside, some for grandpa, but most for
Uncle Joseph, who prized highly everything coming
from “the Madam,” and sent back to her more than
one strangely-worded message, which made the proud
woman’s eyes overflow when sure that no one could
see her.
But this kind of intercourse came to an end at
last. The vacation was over, Jessie had gone back to
school, and Maddy began in sober earnest the new life
before her. Flora, it is true, relieved her of all household
drudgery, but no one could share the burden of
care and anxiety pressing so heavily upon her; anxiety
for her grandfather, whose health seemed failing so
fast, and who always looked so disturbed if a shadow
304were resting on her bright face, or her voice was less
cheerful in its tone; and care for the imbecile Joseph,
who clung to her as a child clings to its mother,
refusing to be cared for by any one else, and often
requiring of her more than her strength could endure
for a great length of time. She gave him his breakfast
in the morning, amused him through the day, and
then after he was in bed at night often sat by his side
till a late hour, singing to him old songs, or telling
Bible stories until he fell asleep. Then if he woke, as
he frequently did, there was a cry for Maddy, and the
soothing process had to be repeated, until the tired,
pale watcher ceased to wonder that her grandmother
had died so suddenly, wondering rather that she had
lived so long and borne so much.
Those were dark, wearisome hours to Maddy, and
when the long, cold winter was gone from the New
England hills, and the early buds of spring were coming
up by the cottage door, the neighbors began to
talk of the change which had come over the young
girl, once so full of life and health, but now so languid
and pale. Still, Maddy was not unhappy, nor was the
discipline too severe, for by it she learned at last the
great object of life; learned to take her troubles and
cares to one who helped her bear them so cheerfully,
305that those who pitied her most never dreamed how
heavy was her burden, so patiently and sweetly she
bore it. Occasionally there came to her letters from
the doctor, but latterly they gave her less pleasure
than pain, for as often as she read one of his kind,
friendly messages of sympathy and remembrance, the
tempter whispered to her that though she did not love
him as she ought to love her husband, a life with him
would be far preferable to the life she was living, and
a receipt of his letters always gave her a pang which
lasted until Guy came down to see her, when it usually
disappeared. Agnes was now at Aikenside, and
thus Maddy frequently had Jessie at the cottage, but
Agnes never came, and Maddy little guessed how
often the proud woman cried herself to sleep after
listening to Jessie’s recital of all Maddy had to do for
the crazy man, and how patiently she did it. He had
taken a fancy that Maddy must tell him stories of
Sarah, describing her as she was now, and not as she
used to be when he knew her. “What is she now?
How does she look? What does she wear? Tell me,
tell me!” he would plead, until Maddy, forced to tell
him something, and having distinctly in her mind but
one fashionable woman such as she fancied Sarah
might be, told him of Agnes Remington, describing
306her as she was in her mature beauty, with her heavy
flowing curls, her brilliant color, her flashing diamonds
and costly laces, and Uncle Joseph, listening to her
with parted lips and hushed breath, would whisper
softly, “Yes, that’s Sarah, beautiful Sarah; but tell
me—does she ever think of me, or of that time in the
orchard when I wove the apple blossoms in her hair,
where the diamonds are now? She loved me then;
she told me so. Does she know how sick, and sorry,
and foolish I am?—how the aching in my poor simple
brain is all for her, and how you, poor Maddy, are
doing for me what it should have been her place to do?
Had I a voice,” and the crazy man would grow excited,
as, raising himself in bed, he gesticulated wildly, “had
I a voice to reach her, I’d cry shame on her, to let you
do her work, let you wear your young life and fresh,
bright beauty all away for me, whom she ruined.”
The voice he craved, or the echo of it, did reach
her, for Jessie had been present when the fancy first
seized him to hear of Sarah, and in the shadowy twilight
she told her mother all, dwelling most upon the
touching sadness of his face when he said, “Does she
know how sick and sorry I am?”
The pillow which Agnes pressed that night was
wet with tears, while in her heart was planted a germ
307of gratitude and respect for the young girl doing her
work for her. All that she could do for Maddy without
going directly to her, she did, devising many articles
of comfort, sending her fruit and flowers, the last
new book, or whatever else she thought might please
her, and always finding a willing messenger in Guy.
He was miserable, and managed when at home to
make others so around him. The sight of Maddy
bearing her burden so uncomplainingly almost maddened
him. Had she fretted or complained he could
have borne it better, he said, but he did not see the
necessity for her to lose all her spirit or interest in
everything and everybody. Once when he hinted as
much to Maddy, he had been awed into silence by the
subdued expression of her face as she told him in part
what it was which helped her to bear, and made the
rough places so smooth. He had seen something like
this in Lucy, when paroxysms of pain were racking
her delicate frame, but he could not understand it;
he only knew it was something he could not touch—something
against which his arguments beat helplessly;
and so with an added respect for Maddy Clyde
he smothered his impatience, and determining to help
her all he could, rode down to Honedale every day,
instead of twice a week, as he had done before.
308Attentions so marked could not fail to be commented
upon; and while poor, unsuspecting Maddy
was deriving so much comfort from his daily visits,
deeming that day very long which did not bring him
to her, the Honedale gossips, of which there were
many, were busy with her affairs, talking them over
at their numerous tea-drinkings, discussing them in the
streets, and finally at a quilting, where they met in
solemn conclave, deciding that “for a girl like Maddy
Clyde it did not look well to have so much to do with
young Remington, who, everybody knew, was engaged
to somebody in England.”
“Yes, and would have been married long ago, if it
wasn’t for this foolin’ with Maddy,” chimed in Mrs.
Joel Spike, throwing the chalk across the quilt to her
sister, Tripheny Marvel, who wondered if Maddy
thought he’d ever have her.
“Of course he won’t. He knows what he is about.
He is not green enough to marry Grandpa Markham’s
daughter; and if she don’t look out, she’ll get herself
into a pretty scrape. It don’t look well, anyhow, for
her to be putting on airs, as she has done ever since
big folks took her up.”
All this and much more was said, and by the time
the patchwork quilt was done, there remained but
309little to be said either for or against Guy Remington
and Maddy Clyde, which had not been said by either
friend or foe.
Among the invited guests at that quilting was the
wife of Farmer Green, Maddy’s warmest friend in
Honedale, and the one who did her best to defend her
against the attacks of those whose remarks she well
knew were caused more by envy than by any personal
dislike to Maddy, who used to be so much of a pet
until her superior advantages separated her in a
measure from them. Good Mrs. Green was sorely
tried. Without in the least blaming Maddy, she, too,
had been troubled at the frequency of Guy’s visits to
the cottage. It was not friendship alone which took
him there, she was sure; and knowing that he was
engaged, she feared for Maddy’s happiness at first,
and afterward, when people began to talk, she feared
for her good name. Something must be done, and
though she dreaded it greatly, she was the one to do
it. Accordingly, next day she started for the cottage,
which Guy had just left, and this in her opinion
accounted for the bright color in Maddy’s cheek and
the sparkle in her eye. Guy had been there, bringing
and leaving a world of sunshine, but, alas, his chances
for coming again as he had done were fearfully small
310when at the close of Mrs. Green’s well-meant visit
Maddy lay on her bed, her white, frightened face
buried in the pillows, and herself half wishing she had
died before the last hour had come, with the terrible
awakening it had brought; awakening to the fact
that of all living beings, Guy Remington was the one
she loved the best—the one without whose presence it
seemed to her she could not live, but without which
she now knew she must.
With the best of intentions Mrs. Green had made
a bungle of the whole affair, but had succeeded in
giving Maddy a general impression that “folks were
talking awfully about Guy’s coming there, and doing
for her so much like an accepted lover, when everybody
knew he was engaged, and wouldn’t be likely to
marry a poor girl if he was not; that unless she
wanted to be ruined teetotally, and lose all her friends,
she must contrive to stop his visits, and not see him so
much.”
“Yes, I’ll do anything, only please leave me now,”
Maddy gasped, her face as white as ashes and her eyes
fixed pleadingly upon Mrs. Green, who, having been
young herself, guessed the truth, and, as she rose to
go, laid her motherly hand on Maddy’s head, saying
kindly:
311“Poor child, it’s hard to bear now, but you’ll get
over it in time.”
“Get over it,” Maddy moaned, as she shut and
bolted the door after Mrs. Green, and then threw herself
upon the bed, “I never shall till I die!”
She almost felt that she was dying, so desolate and
so dreary the future looked to her. What was life
worth without Guy, and why had she been thrown so
much in his way; why permitted to love him as she
knew she did, if she must lose him now? Maddy
could not cry; there was a tightness about her eyes,
and a keen, cutting pain about her heart as she tried
to pray for strength to cast Guy Remington from her
heart, where it was a sin for him to be; and then she
asked to be forgiven for the wrong she had unwittingly
done to Lucy Atherstone, who trusted her
implicitly, and who, in her last letter, had said:
“If I had not so much faith in Guy I should be
jealous of one who has so many opportunities for
stealing his heart from me, but I trust you, Maddy
Clyde. You would not do a thing to harm me, I am
sure, and to lose Guy now, after these years of cruel
waiting, would kill me.”
There was in Lucy’s heart a faint stirring of fear
lest Maddy Clyde might be a shadow in her pathway,
312else she had never written that to her. But Lucy’s
cause was safe in Maddy’s hands. Always too high-souled
to do a treacherous act, she was now sustained
by another and holier principle, which of itself would
have kept her from the wrong. But for a few moments
Maddy abandoned herself to the bliss of fancying
what it would be to be loved by Guy Remington, as
she loved him. And as she thought, there crept into
her heart the certainty that in some degree he did
love her; that his friendship was more than a mere
liking for the girl to whom he had been so kind. In
Lucy’s absence she was essential to his happiness, and
that was why he sought her society so much. Remembering
everything that had passed, but more particularly
the incidents of that memorable night ride to
Honedale, with all that had followed since, she could
not doubt it, and softly to herself she whispered, “He
loves me, he loves me,” while little throbs of joy came
and went in her heart; but only for an instant,
and then the note of joy was changed to sorrow as she
thought how she must henceforth seek to kill that
love, both for her own sake and for Lucy’s. Guy must
not come there any more. She could not bear it
now, even if the neighbors had never meddled with
her. She could not see him as she had done and not
313betray her real feelings toward him. He had been
there that day; he would come again to-morrow, and
she could see him just as he would look coming up the
walk, easy and self-possessed, confident of his reception,
his handsome face beaming with kind thoughtfulness
for her, and his voice full of tender concern, as
he asked how she was, and bade Flora see that she did
not overtax herself—and all this must cease. She had
seen it, heard it for the last time! No wonder that
Maddy’s heart fainted within her, as she thought how
desolate, how dreary would be the days when Guy no
longer came there. But the victory was gained at
last, and strength imparted for the task she had to do.
Going to the table she opened her portfolio, the
gift of Guy, and wrote to him what the neighbors
were saying, and that he must come there no more;
at least, only once in a great while, because, if he did,
she could not see him. Then, when this was written
she went down to Uncle Joseph, who was beginning
to call for her, and sat by him as usual, singing to
him the songs he loved so well, and which this night
pleased him especially, because the voice which sang
them was so plaintive, so full of woe. Would he
never go to sleep, or the hand which held hers so
firmly relax its hold? Never, it seemed to Maddy,
314who sat and sang, while the night-bird on a distant
tree, awakened by the low song, uttered a responsive
note, and the hours crept on to midnight. Human
nature could endure no more, and when the crazy
man said to her, “Now sing of Him who died on Calvary,”
Maddy’s answer was a gaping cry as she fell
fainting on the pillow.
“It was only a nervous headache,” she said to the
frightened Flora, who came at Uncle Joseph’s call,
and helped her young mistress up to bed. “She
should be better in the morning, and she would
rather be alone.”
So Flora left her, but went often to her door, until
assured by the low breathing sound that Maddy was
sleeping at last. It was a heavy sleep, and when
Maddy awoke the pain in her temples was still there;
she could not rise, and was half glad that she could
not, inasmuch as her illness would be a reason why
she could not see Guy if he came. She did not know
he was there already, until she heard his voice speaking
to her grandfather. It was later than she imagined,
and he had ridden down early because he could
not stay away.
“I can’t see him, Flora,” Maddy said, when the
latter came up with the message that Mr. Remington
315was there with his buggy, and asked if a little ride
would not do her good. “I can’t see him, but give
him this,” and she placed in Flora’s hand the note,
baptized with so many tears and prayers, and the contents
of which made Guy furious; not at her, but at
the neighbors, the inquisitive, ignorant, meddlesome
neighbors, who had dared to talk of him, or to breathe
a suspicious word against Maddy Clyde. He would
make them sorry for it; they should take back every
word; and they should beg Maddy’s forgiveness for
the pain they had caused her.
All this, and much more, Guy thought, as, with
Maddy’s note in his hand, he walked up and down the
sitting-room, raging like a young lion, and threatening
vengeance upon everybody. This was not the
first intimation Guy had received of the people’s
gossip, for only that morning Mrs. Noah had hinted
that his course was not at all calculated to do Maddy
any good, while Agnes had repeated to him some
things which she had heard touching the frequency of
his visits to Honedale; but these were nothing to the
calmly-worded message which banished him effectually
from Maddy’s presence. He knew Maddy, and
he knew she meant what she wrote, but he could not
have it so. He must see her; he would see her; and
316so for the next half hour Flora was the bearer of
written messages to and from Maddy’s room; messages
of earnest entreaty on the one hand, and of
firm denial on the other. At last Maddy wrote:
“If you care for me in the least, or for my respect,
leave me, and do not come again until I send for you.
I am not insensible to your kindness. I feel it all;
but the world is nearer right than you suppose. It
does not look well for you to come here so much, and
I prefer that you should not. Justice to Lucy requires
that you stay away.”
That roused Guy’s pride, and writing back:
“You shall be obeyed. Good-bye!”—he sprang
into his buggy, and Maddy heard him as he drove
furiously away.
Those were long, dreary days which followed, and
but for her grandfather’s increasing feebleness Maddy
would almost have died. Anxiety for him, however,
kept her from dwelling too much upon herself, but
the excitement and the care wore upon her sadly, robbing
her eye of its luster and her cheek of its remaining
bloom, and making Mrs. Noah cry when she came
one day with Jessie to see how they were getting on.
She had heard from Guy of his banishment, and now
that he staid away, she was ready to step in; so she
317came laden with sympathy and other more substantial
comforts brought from Aikenside.
Maddy was glad to see her, and for a time cried
softly on her bosom, while Mrs. Noah’s tears kept
company with hers. Not a word was said of Guy,
except when Jessie told her that “he had gone to
Boston, and it was so stupid at home without him.”
With more than her ordinary discretion, Flora
kept to herself what had passed when Guy was last
there, so Mrs. Noah knew nothing except what he had
told her, and what she read in Maddy’s white, suffering
face. This last was enough to excite all her pity,
and she treated the young girl with the most motherly
kindness, staying all night, and herself taking care of
grandpa, who was now too ill to sit up. There
seemed to be no disease preying upon him, nothing
save old age, and the loss of one who for more than
forty years had shared all his joy and sorrow. He
could not live without her, and one night, three weeks
after Guy’s dismissal, he said to Maddy, as she was
about to leave him:
“Sit with me, darling, for a little while, if you are
not too tired. Your grandmother seems near me
to-night, and so does Alice, your mother. Maybe I’ll
318be with them before another day. I hope I may, if
God is willing, and there’s much I would say to you.”
He was very pale, and the great sweat-drops stood
on his forehead and under his white hair, but Maddy
wiped them away, and listened with a breaking heart
while the aged disciple, almost home, told her of the
peace, the joy, that shone around his pathway to the
tomb, and of the everlasting arm bearing him so
gently over Jordan. Then he talked of herself,
blessing her for all she had been to him, telling her
how happy she had made his life since she came home
to stay, and how for a time he ached so with fear lest
she should choose to go back and leave him to a
stranger. “But my darling staid with her old
grandpa. She’ll never be sorry for it. I’ve tried you
sometimes, I know, for old folks ain’t like young; but
I’m sorry, Maddy, and you’ll forget it when I’m gone,
darling Maddy, precious child!” and the trembling
hand rested caressingly on her bowed head as grandpa
went on to speak of his little property, which was hers
after the mortgage to Mr. Guy was paid. “I’ve kept
up the interest,” he said, “but I could never get him to
take any of the principal. I don’t know why he is so
good to me. Tell him, Maddy, how I thanked and
blessed him just before I died; tell him how I used to
319pray for him every day that he might choose the better
part. And he will—I’m sure he will, some day.
He hasn’t been here of late, and though my old eyes
are dim, I can see that your step has got slow,
and your face whiter by many shades, since he staid
away. Maddy, child, the dead tell no secrets, and I
shall soon be dead. Tell me, then, what it is between
you two. Does my girl love Mr. Guy?”
“Oh, grandpa, grandpa!” Maddy moaned, laying
her head beside his own on the pillow.
It would be a relief to talk with some one of that terrible
pain, which grew worse every day; of that intense
longing just for one sight of the beloved one; of Guy,
still absent from Aikenside, wandering nobody knew
where; and so Maddy told the whole story, while the
dying man listened to her, and smoothing her silken
hair, tried to comfort her.
“The worst is not over yet,” he said. “Guy will
offer to make you his wife, sacrificing Lucy for you;
and if he does, what will my darling do?”
Maddy’s heart leaped into her throat, and for
a moment prevented her from answering, for the
thought of Guy’s really offering to make her his wife,
to shield her from evil, to enfold her in his tender
320love, made her giddy with joy. But it could not be,
and she answered through her tears:
“I shall tell him No.”
“God bless my Maddy! You will tell him No for
Lucy’s sake, and God will bring it right at last,” the
old man whispered, his voice growing very faint and
tremulous. “She will tell him No,” he kept repeating,
until, rousing up to greater consciousness, he spoke of
Uncle Joseph, and asked what Maddy would do with
him; would she send him back to the asylum, or care
for him there? “He will be happier here,” he said,
“but it is asking too much of a young girl like you.
He may live for years.”
“I do not know, grandpa. I hope I may do right.
I think I shall keep Uncle Joseph with me,” Maddy
replied, a shudder creeping over her as she thought of
living out all her youth, and possibly middle age, with
a lunatic.
But her grandfather’s whispered blessings brought
comfort with them, and a calm quiet fell upon her as
she sat listening to the words of prayer, catching now
and then her own name and that of Guy’s.
“I am drowsy, Maddy. Watch while I sleep.
Perhaps I’ll never wake again,” grandpa said, and
clasping Maddy’s hands he went to sleep while
321Maddy kept her watch beside him, until she too fell
into a troubled sleep, from which she was roused by a
clammy hand pressing on her forehead, and Uncle
Joseph’s voice, which said:
“Wake, my child. There’s been a guest here
while you slumbered,” and he pointed to the rigid
features of the dead.
CHAPTER XX. THE BURDEN GROWS HEAVIER.
322
Of the days which followed, Maddy had no
distinct consciousness. She only knew
that other hands than hers cared for the
dead; that in the little parlor a stiff, white figure lay;
that neighboring women stole in, treading on tiptoe,
and speaking in hushed voices as they consulted, not
her, but Mrs. Noah, who had come at once, and cared
for her and hers so kindly. That she lay all day in
her own room, where the summer breeze blew softly
through the window, bringing the perfume of summer
flowers, the sound of a tolling bell, of grinding wheels,
the notes of a low, sad hymn, sung in faltering tones
and of many feet moving from the door. Then
friendly faces looked in upon her, asking how she
felt, and whispering ominously to each other as she
answered:
“Very well; is grandpa getting better?”
Then Mrs. Noah sat with her for a time, fanning
323her with a palm-leaf fan and brushing the flies away.
Then Flora came up with a man whom they called
“Doctor,” and who gave her sundry little pills and
powders, after which they all went out and left her
there with Jessie, who had been crying, and whose
soft little hands felt so cool on her hot head, and
whose kisses on her lips made the tears start, and
brought a thought of Guy, making her ask, “if he
was at the funeral.” She did not know whose funeral
she meant, or why she used that word, only it seemed
to her that Jessie had just come back from somebody’s
grave, and she asked if Guy was there.
“No,” Jessie said; “mother wanted to write and
tell him, but we don’t know where he is.”
And this was all Maddy could recall of the days
succeeding the night of her last watch at her grandfather’s
side, until one balmy August afternoon, when
on the Honedale hills there lay that smoky haze so
like the autumn time hurrying on apace, and when
through her open window stole the fragrance of the
later summer flowers. Then, as if waking from an
ordinary sleep, she woke suddenly to consciousness,
and staring about the room, wondered if it were
as late as the western sun would indicate, and how she
came to sleep so long.
324For a while she lay thinking, and as she thought, a
sad scene came back to her, a night when her hot
hands had been enfolded in those of the dead, and
that dead her grandfather. Was it true, or was she
laboring under some hallucination of the brain? If
true, was that white, pallid face still to be seen in the
room below, or had they buried him from her sight?
She would know, and with a strange kind of nervous
strength she rose, and throwing on the wrapper and
slippers which lay near, descended the stairs, wondering
to find herself so weak, and half shuddering at the
deep stillness of the house—a stillness broken only by
the ticking of the clock and the purring of the house
cat, which at sight of Maddy arose from its position
near the door and came forward, rubbing its sides
against her dress, and trying in various ways to evince
its joy at seeing one whose caresses it had missed so
long. The little bed-room off the kitchen, where
grandpa slept and died, was vacant; the old-fashioned
coat was put away, as was every vestige of the old
man, save the broad-rimmed hat which hung upon the
wall just where his hands had hung it, and which
looked so much like its owner that with a gush of
tears Maddy sank upon the bed, moaning to herself,
“Yes, grandpa is dead. I remember now. But Uncle
325Joseph, where is he? Can he too have died without
my knowledge?” and she looked around in vain for
the lunatic, not a trace of whom was to be found.
His room was in perfect order, as was everything
about the house, showing that Flora was still the
domestic goddess, while Maddy detected also various
things which she recognized as having come from
Aikenside. Who sent them? Did Guy, and had he
been there too while she was sick? The thought
brought a throb of joy to Maddy’s heart, but it soon
passed away as she began again to wonder if Uncle
Joseph, too, had died, and where Flora was. It was
not far to the Honedale burying-ground, and Maddy
could see the head-stones gleaming through the
August sunlight; could discern her mother’s, and
knew that two fresh mounds at least were made beside
it. But were there three? Was Uncle Joseph there?
By stealing across the meadow in the rear of the house
the distance to the graveyard was shortened more
than half, and could not be more than the eighth part
of a mile. She could walk so far, she knew. The
fresh air would do her good, and hunting up her long
unused hat, the impatient girl started, stopping once
or twice to rest as a dizzy faintness came over her, and
then continuing on until the spot she sought was
326reached. There were three graves, one old and
sunken, one made when the last winter’s snow was on
the hills, the other fresh and new. That was all.
Uncle Joseph was not there, and vague terror entered
Maddy’s heart lest he had been taken back to the
asylum.
“I will get him out,” she said; “I will take care
of him. I should die with nothing to do; and I
promised grandpa——”
She could get no further, for the rush of memories
which came over her, and seating herself upon the
ground close to the new grave, she laid her face upon
it, and sobbed piteously:
“Oh, grandpa, I’m so lonely without you all;
I almost wish I was lying here in the quiet yard.”
Then a storm of tears ensued, after which Maddy
grew calm, and with her head still bent down did not
hear the rapid step coming down the grassy road,
past the marble tomb-stones, to where she was crouching
upon the ground. There it stopped, and in a half
whisper some one called, “Maddy! Maddy!”
Then she started, and lifting up her head saw
before her Guy Remington. For a moment she
regarded him intently, while he said to her, kindly,
pityingly:
327“Poor child, you have suffered so much, and I
never knew of it till a few days ago.”
At the sound of that loved voice speaking thus to
her, everything else was forgotten, and with a cry of
joy Maddy stretched her hands toward him, moaning
out:
“Oh, Guy, Guy, where have you been, when I
wanted you so much?”
Maddy did not know what she was saying, or half
comprehend the effect it had on Guy, who forgot
everything save that she had missed him, had turned
to him in her trouble, and it was not in his nature to
resist her appeal. With a spring he was at her side,
and lifting her in his arms seated himself upon her
mother’s grave; then straining her tightly to his
bosom, he kissed her again and again. Hot, burning,
passionate kisses they were, which took from Maddy
all power of resistance, even had she wished to resist,
which she did not. Too weak to reason, or see the
harm, if harm there were, in being loved by Guy, she
abandoned herself for a brief interval to the bliss of
knowing that she was beloved, and of hearing him
tell her so.
“Darling Maddy,” he said, “I went away because
you sent me, but now I have come back, and nothing
328shall part us again. You are mine, I claim you here
at your mother’s grave. Dear Maddy, I did not know
of all this till three days ago, when Agnes’s letter found
me almost at the Rocky Mountains. Then I traveled
day and night, reaching Aikenside this morning, and
coming straight to Honedale. I wish I had come
before, now that I know you wanted me. Say that
again, Maddy. Tell me again that you missed and
wanted me.”
He was smoothing her hair, as her head still lay
pillowed upon his breast, so he could not see the
spasm of pain which contorted her features as he thus
appealed to her. Half bewildered, Maddy could not
at first make out whether it were a blissful dream or a
reality, that she was there in Guy’s arms, with his
kisses on her forehead, lips and cheek, his words of
love in her ear, and the soft summer sky smiling down
upon her. Alas, it was a dream from which she was
awakened by the thought of one across the sea, whoso
place she had usurped, and this it was which brought
the grieved expression to her face as she answered
mournfully:
“I did want you, Guy, when I forgot; but now—oh,
Guy—Lucy Atherstone!”
With a gesture of impatience Guy was about to
329answer, when something in the heavy fall of the little
hand from his shoulder alarmed him, and lifting up
the drooping head he saw that Maddy had fainted.
Then back across the meadow Guy bore her to the
cottage, where Flora, who had just returned from a
neighbor’s, whither she had gone upon an errand, was
looking for her in much affright, and wondering who
had come from Aikenside with that wet, tired horse,
which showed so plainly how hard it had been driven.
They carried Maddy again into her little chamber,
which she never left until the golden harvest sheaves
were gathered in, and the hot September sun was
ripening the fruits of autumn. But now she had a
new nurse, a constant attendant, who during the day
seldom left her except to talk with and amuse Uncle
Joseph, mourning below because no one sang to him
or noticed him as Maddy used to do. He had not
been sent to the asylum, as Maddy feared, but by way
of relieving Flora had been taken to Farmer Green’s,
where he was so homesick and discontented that at
Guy’s instigation he was suffered to return to the cottage,
crying like a little child when the old familiar
spot was reached, kissing his arm-chair, the cook-stove,
the tongs, Mrs. Noah and Flora, and timidly
offering to kiss the Lord Governor himself, as he persisted
330in calling Guy, who declined the honor, but listened
quietly to the crazy man’s promise “not to to spit
the smallest kind of a spit on the floor, or anywhere
except in its proper place.”
Guy had passed through several states of mind
during the interval in which we have seen so little of
him. Furious at one time, and reckless as to consequences,
he had determined to break with Lucy and
marry Maddy, in spite of everybody; then, as a sense
of honor came over him, he resolved to forget Maddy,
if possible, and marry Lucy at once. It was in this
last mood, and while roaming over the Western
country, whither after his banishment he had gone,
that he wrote Lucy a strange kind of letter, saying he
had waited for her long enough, and sick or well he
should claim her the coming autumn. To this letter
Lucy had responded quickly, sweetly reproving Guy
for his impatience, softly hinting that latterly he had
been quite as culpable as herself in the matter of deferring
their union, and appointing the bridal day for
the —— of December. After this was settled Guy felt
better, though the old sore spot in his heart, where
Maddy Clyde had been, was very sore still, and sometimes
it required all his powers of self-control to keep
from writing to Lucy and asking to be released from
331an engagement so irksome as his had become. He
had neglected to answer Agnes’s letters when he first
left home, and she did not know where he was until
a short time before his return, when she wrote apprising
him of grandpa’s death and Maddy’s severe illness.
This brought him at once, and Maddy’s involuntary
outburst when she met him in the graveyard, changed
the whole current of his intentions. Let what would
come, Maddy Clyde should be his wife, and as such
he watched over her constantly, nursing her back to
life, and by his manner effectually silencing all remark,
so that the neighbors whispered among themselves
what Maddy’s prospects were, and, as was quite
natural, were a very little more attentive to the future
lady of Aikenside. Poor Maddy! it was a terrible
trial which awaited her, but it must be met, and so
with prayers and tears she fortified herself to meet it,
while Guy hung over her, never guessing of all that
was passing in her mind, or how, when he was out of
sight, the lips he had longed so much to kiss, but
never had since that day in the graveyard, quivered
with anguish as they asked for strength to do right;
crying often, “Help me, Father, to do my duty, and
give me, too, a greater inclination to do it than I now
possess.”
332Maddy’s heart failed her sometimes, and she might
have yielded to the temptation but for a letter from
Lucy, full of eager anticipations of the time when she
should see Guy, never to part again.
“Sometimes,” she wrote, “there comes over me a
dark foreboding of evil—a fear that I shall miss the
cup now just within my reach; but I pray the bad
feelings away. I am sure there is no living being
who will come between us to break my heart, and as I
know God doeth all things well, I trust him wholly
and cease to doubt.”
It was well the letter came when it did, as it
helped Maddy to meet the hour she so much dreaded,
and which came at last on an afternoon when Mrs.
Noah had gone to Aikenside, and Flora had gone on
an errand to a neighbor’s two miles away, thus leaving
Guy free to tell the story, so old, yet always new
to him who tells it and to her who listens, the story
which, as Guy told it, sitting by Maddy’s side, with
her hands in his, thrilled her through and through,
making the sweat-drops start out around her lips and
underneath her hair; the story which made Guy himself
pant nervously and tremble like a leaf, so earnestly
he told her how long he had loved her, of the
picture withheld, the jealousy he felt each time the
333doctor named her, the selfish joy he experienced when
he heard the doctor was refused; of his growing dissatisfaction
with his engagement, his frequent resolves
to break it, his final decision, which that scene in the
graveyard had reversed, and then asked if she would
not be his—not doubtfully, but confidently, eagerly
as if sure of her answer.
Alas for Guy! he could not believe he heard
aright when, turning her head away for a moment
while she prayed for strength, Maddy’s answer came,
“I cannot, Guy, I cannot. I acknowledge the love
which has stolen upon me, I know not how, but I cannot
do this wrong to Lucy. Away from me you will
love her again. You must. Read this, Guy, then say
if you can desert her.”
She placed Lucy’s letter in his hand, and Guy read
it with a heart which ached to its very core. It was
cruel to deceive that gentle, trusting girl writing so
lovingly of him, but to lose Maddy was to his undisciplined
nature more dreadful still, and casting the letter
aside he pleaded again, this time with the energy of
despair, for he read his fate in Maddy’s face, and
when her lips a second time confirmed her first reply,
while she appealed to his sense of honor, of justice, of
right, and told him he could and must forget her, he
334knew there was no hope, and, man though he was,
bowed his head upon Maddy’s hands and wept
stormily, with mighty, choking sobs, which shook his
frame, and seemed to break up the very fountains of
his life. Then to Maddy there came a terrible temptation.
Was it right for two who loved as they did to
live their lives apart?—right in her to force on Guy
the fulfillment of vows he could not literally keep?
As mental struggles are always the more severe, so
Maddy’s took all her strength away, and for many
minutes she was so white and still that Guy roused
himself to care for her, thinking of nothing then
except to make her better.
It was a long time ere that interview ended, but
when it did there was on Maddy’s face a peaceful expression,
which only the sense of having done right at
the cost of a fearful sacrifice could give, while Guy’s
bore traces of a great and crushing sorrow, as he went
out from Maddy’s presence and felt that to him she
was lost forever. He had promised her he would do
right; had said he would marry Lucy, and be to her
what a husband should be; and he had listened while
she talked of another world, where they neither marry
or are given in marriage, and where it would not be
sinful for them to love each other, and as she talked
335her face had shone like the face of an angel. He had
hold one of her hands at parting, bending low his head,
while she laid the other on it as she blessed him, letting
her fingers thread his soft brown hair for a
moment and linger caressingly among his curly locks.
But that was over now. They had parted forever.
She was lying where he left her, cold and white, and
faint with dizzy pain. He was riding swiftly toward
Aikenside, his heart-beats keeping time to the swift
tread of his horse’s feet, and his mind a confused medley
of distracted thoughts, amid which two facts stood
out prominent and clear—he had lost Maddy Clyde,
and had promised her to marry Lucy Atherstone.
For many days after that Guy kept his room,
saying he was sick, and refusing to see any one save
Jessie and Mrs. Noah, the latter of whom guessed in
part what had happened, and imputing to him far
more credit than he deserved, petted and pitied and
cared for him until he grew weary of it, and said to
her, savagely:
“You needn’t think me so good, for I am not. I
wanted Maddy Clyde, and told her so, but she refused
me and made me promise to marry Lucy; so I’m
going to do that very thing. I am going to England
in a few weeks, or as soon as Maddy is better, and before
336the sun of this year sets I shall be a married
man.”
After this all Mrs. Noah’s influence was in favor of
Maddy, and the good lady made more than one pilgrimage
to Honedale, where she expended all her
arguments trying to make Maddy revoke her decision;
but Maddy was firm in what she deemed right, and as
her health began slowly to improve, and there was
no longer an excuse for Guy to tarry, he started
for England the latter part of October, as unhappy
and unwilling a bridegroom, it may be, as ever went
after a bride.
CHAPTER XXI. THE INTERVAL BEFORE THE MARRIAGE.
337
Maddy never knew how she lived through
those bright, autumnal days, when the
gorgeous beauty of decaying nature
seemed so cruelly to mock her anguish. As long as
Guy was there, breathing the same air with herself,
she kept up, vaguely conscious of a shadowy hope
that something would happen without her instrumentality,
something to ease the weight pressing
so hard upon her. But when she heard that he had
really gone, that a line had been received from him
after he was on board the steamer, all hope died out
of her heart, and had it been right she would
have prayed that she might die, and forget how
utterly miserable she was.
At last there came to her three letters, one from
Lucy, one from the doctor, and one from Guy himself.
She opened Lucy’s first, and read of the sweet girl’s
great happiness in seeing Guy again, of her sorrow to
338find him so thin, and pale, and changed, in all save his
extreme kindness to her, his careful study of her
wants, and evident anxiety to please her in every
respect. On this Lucy dwelt, until Maddy’s heart
seemed to leap up and almost turn over, so fiercely it
throbbed and ached with anguish. She was out in the
woods when she read the letter, and laying her face in
the grass she sobbed as she never sobbed before.
The doctor’s letter was opened next, and Maddy
read with blinding tears that which for a moment increased
her pain and sent to her heart an added pang
of disappointment, or a sense of wrong done to her,
she could not tell which. Dr. Holbrook was to be
married the same day with Guy, and to Lucy’s sister
Margaret.
“Maggie, I call her,” he wrote, “because that
name is so much like my first love, Maddy, the little
girl who thought I was too old to be her husband, and
so made me very wretched for a time, until I met and
knew Margaret Atherstone. I have told her of you,
Maddy; I would not marry her without, and she
seems willing to take me as I am. We shall come
home with Guy, who is the mere wreck of what
he was when I last saw him. He has told me everything,
and though I doubly respect you now, I cannot
339say that I think you did quite right. Better that one
should suffer than two, and Lucy’s is a nature which
will forget far sooner than yours or Guy’s. I pity
you all.”
This almost killed Maddy; she did not love the
doctor, but the knowledge that he was to be married
added to her misery, while what he said of her decision
was the climax of the whole. Had her sacrifice
been for nothing? Would it have been better if she
had not sent Guy away? It was anguish unspeakable
to believe so, and the leafless woods never echoed to
so bitter a cry of pain as that with which she laid her
head on the ground, and for a brief moment wished
that she might die. God pitied his child then, and
for the next half hour she hardly knew what she
suffered.
There was Guy’s letter yet to read, and with a
listless indifference she opened it at last and was glad
that he made no direct reference to the past except
when he spoke of Lucy, telling how happy she was,
and how, if anything could reconcile him to his fate, it
was the knowing how pure and good and loving was
the wife he was getting. Then he wrote of the doctor
and Margaret, whom he described as a dashing,
340brilliant girl, the veriest tease and mad-cap in the
world, and the exact opposite of Maddy.
“It is strange to me why he chose her after loving
you,” he wrote; “but as they seem fond of each other,
their chances of happiness are not inconsiderable.”
This letter, so calm, so cheerful in its tone, had a
quieting effect on Maddy, who read it twice, and then
placing it in her bosom, started for the cottage, meeting
on the way with Flora, who was seeking for her
in great alarm. Uncle Joseph had had a fit, she said,
and fallen upon the floor, cutting his forehead badly
against the sharp point of the stove. Hurrying on
Maddy found that what Flora had said was true, and
sent immediately for the physician, who came at once,
but shook his head doubtfully as he examined his
patient. The wound was very serious, he said, and
fever might ensue. Nothing in the form of trouble
could particularly affect Maddy now, and perhaps it
was wisely ordered that Uncle Joseph’s illness should
take her thoughts from herself. From the very first
he refused to take his medicines from any one save her
or Jessie, who with her mother’s permission staid altogether
at the cottage, and who, as Guy’s sister, was a
great comfort to Maddy.
As the fever which the doctor had predicted, increased,
341and Uncle Joseph grew more and more delirious,
his cries for Sarah were heart-rending, making
Jessie weep bitterly, as she said to Maddy:
“If I knew where this Sarah was I’d go miles on
foot to find her and bring her to him.”
Something like this Jessie said to her mother when
she went for a day to Aikenside, asking her in conclusion
if she thought Sarah would go, supposing she
could be found.
“Perhaps,” and Agnes brushed abstractedly her
long flowing hair, winding it around her fingers, and
then letting the soft curls fall across her snowy arms.
“Where do you suppose she is?” was Jessie’s next
question, but if Agnes knew, she did not answer,
except by reminding her little daughter that it was
past her bed-time.
The next morning Agnes’s eyes were very red, as
if she had been wakeful the entire night, while her
white face fully warranted the headache she professed
to have.
“Jessie,” she said, as they sat together at their
breakfast, “I am going to Honedale to-day to see
Maddy, and shall leave you here, as I do not care to
have us both absent.”
Jessie demurred a little at first, but finally yielded,
342wondering what had prompted this visit to the cottage.
Maddy wondered so, too, as from the window
she saw Agnes instead of Jessie alighting from the
carriage, and was conscious of a thrill of gratification
that Agnes should have come to see her. But Agnes’s
business was with the sick man, poor Uncle Joseph,
who was sleeping when she came, and so did not hear
her voice as in the tidy kitchen she talked to Maddy,
appearing extremely agitated, and casting her eyes
rapidly from one part of the room to another, resting
now upon the tinware hanging on the wall, and now
upon the gourd swimming in the water-pail which
stood in the old-fashioned sink, with the wooden
spout, directly over the pile of stones covering the
drain. These things were familiar to the proud
woman; she had seen them before, and the sight of
them brought to her a most remorseful regret for the
past, while her heart ached cruelly as she wished she
had never crossed that threshold, or, crossing it, had
never brought ruin to one of its inmates. Agnes was
changed in various ways. All hope of the doctor had
long since been given up, and as Jessie grew older the
mother nature was stronger within her, subduing her
selfishness, and making her far more gentle and considerate
for others than she had been before. To
343Maddy she was exceedingly kind, and never more so
in manner than now, when they sat talking together in
the humble kitchen at the cottage.
“You look tired and sick,” she said. “Your cares
have been too much for you. Let me sit by your
uncle till he wakes, and you go up to bed.”
Very gladly Maddy accepted the offered relief, and
utterly worn out with her constant vigils, she was soon
sleeping soundly in her own room, while Flora, in the
little back room of the house, was busy with her ironing.
Thus there was no one to see Agnes as she went
slowly into the sick-room where Uncle Joseph lay, his
thin face upturned to the light, and his lips occasionally
moving as he muttered in his sleep. There was a
strange contrast between that wasted imbecile and
that proud, queenly woman, but she could remember a
time when the superiority was all upon his side, a time
when in her childish estimation he was the embodiment
of every manly beauty, and the knowledge that
he loved her, his sister’s little hired girl, filled her
with pride and vanity. A great change had come to
them both, since those days, and Agnes, as she
watched him and smothered the cry of pain which rose
to her lips at sight of him, felt that for the fearful
change in him she was answerable. Intellectual,
344talented, admired, and sought by all he had been
once; he was a mere wreck now, and Agnes’s breath
came in short, quick gasps as, glancing furtively round
to see that no one was near, she laid her hand upon
his forehead, and parting his thin hair, said, pityingly
“Poor Joseph.”
The touch awoke him, and starting up he stared
wildly at her, while some memory of the past seemed
to be struggling through the misty clouds, obscuring
his mental vision.
“Who are you, lady, with eyes and hair like
hers?”
“I’m the ‘madam,’ from Aikenside,” Agnes said,
quite loud, as Flora passed the door. Then when she
was gone she added, softly, “I’m Sarah. Don’t you
know me? Sarah Agnes Morris.”
The truth seemed for a moment to burst upon him
in its full reality, and to her dying day Agnes would
never forget the look upon his face, the smile of perfect
happiness breaking through the rain of tears, the love,
the tenderness mingled with distrust, which that look
betokened as he continued gazing at her without a
word. Again her hand rested on his forehead, and
taking it now in his he held it to the light, laughing
insanely at its soft whiteness; then touching the
345costly diamonds which flashed upon him the rainbow
hues, he said:
“Where’s that little bit of a ring I bought for
you?”
She had anticipated this, and took from her pocket
a plain gold ring, kept until that day where no one
could find it, and holding it up, she said:
“Here it is. Do you remember it?”
“Yes, yes;” and his lips began to quiver with a
grieved, injured expression. “He could give you diamonds,
and I couldn’t. That’s why you left me,
wasn’t it, Sarah—why you wrote that letter which
made my head into two? It’s ached so ever since,
and I’ve missed you so much. They put me in a cell
where crazy people were—oh! so many—and they
said that I was mad, when I was only wanting you.
I’m not mad now, am I, darling?”
His arm was round her neck, and he drew her
down until his lips touched hers. And Agnes suffered
it. She could not return the kiss, but she did not turn
away from him, and she let him caress her hair, and
wind it around his fingers, whispering:
“This is like Sarah’s, and you are Sarah, are you
not?”
“Yes, I am Sarah,” she answered, while the smile
346so painful to see again broke over his face as he told
how much he had missed her, and asked, “if she had
not come to stay till he died.”
“There’s something wrong,” he said; “somebody
is dead, and it seems as if somebody else wanted to
die—as if Maddy died ever since the Lord Governor
went away. Do you know Governor Guy?”
“I am his step-mother,” Agnes replied, whereupon
Uncle Joseph laughed so long and loud that Maddy
woke, and, alarmed by the noise, came down to see
what was the matter.
Agnes did not hear her, and as she reached the
doorway, she started at the strange position of the
parties—Uncle Joseph still smoothing the curls which
drooped over him, and Agnes saying to him:
“You heard his name was Remington, did you
not?—James Remington?”
Like a sudden revelation it came upon Maddy, and
she turned to leave, when Agnes, lifting her head,
called her to come in. She did so, and standing upon
the opposite side, said, questioningly:
“You are Sarah Morris?”
For a moment the eyelids quivered, then the neck
arched proudly, as if it were a thing of which she
was not ashamed, and Agnes answered:
347“Yes, I was Sarah Agnes Morris; once, when a
mere child, I was for three months your grandmother’s
hired girl, and afterwards adopted by a lady who
gave me what education I possess, together with that
taste for high life which prompted me to jilt your
Uncle Joseph when a richer man than he offered himself
to me.”
That was all she said—all that Maddy ever knew
of her history, as it was never referred to again,
except that evening, when Agnes said to her, pleadingly:
“Neither Guy nor Jessie, nor any one, need know
what I have told you.”
“They shall not,” was Maddy’s reply; and from
that moment the past, so far as Agnes was concerned,
was a sealed page to both. With this bond of confidence
between them, Agnes felt herself strangely
drawn towards Maddy, while, if it were possible,
something of her olden love was revived for the helpless
man who clung to her now instead of Maddy,
refusing to let her go; neither had Agnes any disposition
to leave him. She should stay to the last, she
said; and she did, taking Maddy’s place, and by her
faithfulness and care winning golden laurels in the
opinion of the neighbors, who marveled at first to see
348so gay a lady at Uncle Joseph’s bedside, attributing it
all to her friendship for Maddy, just as they attributed
his calling for Sarah to a crazy freak. She did resemble
Sarah Morris a very little, they said; and in
Maddy’s presence they sometimes wondered where
Sarah was, and if she was happy with the old man
whom she married, and who they had heard was not
so rich after all, as most of the money belonged to
the son, who inherited it from his mother; but Maddy
kept the secret from every one, so that even Jessie
never suspected why her mother staid day after day
at the cottage; watching and waiting until the last
day of Joseph’s life.
She was alone with him when he died, and
Maddy never knew what passed between them. She
had left them together for an hour, while she did
some errands; and when she returned, Agnes met her
at the door, and with a blanched cheek whispered:
“He is dead; he died in my arms, blessing you
and me. Surely my sin is now forgiven.”
CHAPTER XXII. BEFORE THE BRIDAL.
349
There was a fresh grave made in the churchyard,
and another chair vacant at the cottage,
where Maddy was at last alone. Unfettered
by care and anxiety for sick ones, her aching
heart was free to go to the stately mansion she had
heard described so often, and where now two brides
were busy with their preparations for the bridal hurrying
on so fast. Since the letter read in the leafless
October woods, Maddy had not heard from Guy
directly, though Lucy had written a few brief lines,
telling how happy she was, how strong she was growing,
and how much like himself Guy was becoming.
Maddy had been less than a woman if the last intelligence
had failed to affect her unpleasantly. She did
not wish Guy to regret his decision; but to be forgotten
so soon after so strong protestations of affection
was a little mortifying, and Maddy’s heart throbbed
painfully as she read the letter, half hoping it might
350prove the last she should receive from Lucy Atherstone.
Guy had left no orders for any changes to be made
at Aikenside; but Agnes, who was largely imbued
with a love of bustle and repair, had insisted that at
least the suite of rooms intended for the bride should
be thoroughly renovated with new paper and paint,
carpets and furniture. This plan Mrs. Noah opposed,
for she guessed how little Guy would care for the
change; but Agnes was resolved, and as she had
great faith in Maddy’s taste, she insisted that she
should go to Aikenside, and pass her judgment upon
the improvements. It would do her good, she said—little
dreaming how much it cost Maddy to comply
with her wishes, or how fearfully the poor, crushed
heart ached, as Maddy went through the handsome
rooms intended for Guy’s young bride; but Mrs.
Noah guessed it all, and pitied the white-faced girl,
whose deep mourning robes told the loss of dear ones
by death, but gave no token of that great loss, tenfold
worse than death.
“It was wicked in her to fetch you here,” she said
to Maddy one day when in Lucy’s room she found her
sitting upon the floor, with her head bowed down
upon the window-sill. “But she’s a triflin’ thing, and
351didn’t know ’twould kill you, poor child, poor
Maddy!” and Mrs. Noah laid her hand kindly on
Maddy’s hair. “Maybe you’d better go home,” she
continued, as Maddy made no reply; “it must be
hard, to be here in the rooms, and among the things
which by good rights should be yours.”
“No, Mrs. Noah,” and Maddy’s voice was strangely
unnatural, as she lifted up her head, revealing a face
so haggard and white that Mrs. Noah was frightened,
and asked in much alarm if anything new had happened.
“No, nothing; I was going to say that I’d rather
stay a little longer where there are signs and sounds
of life. I should die to be alone at Honedale to-morrow.
I may die here, I don’t know. Do you know
that to-morrow will be the bridal?”
Yes, Mrs. Noah knew it; but she hoped it might
have escaped Maddy’s mind.
“Poor child,” she said again, “poor child, I mistrust
you did wrong to tell him No!”
“Oh, Mrs. Noah, don’t say that; don’t make it
harder for me to bear. The tempter has been telling
me so, all day, and my heart is so hard and wicked, I
cannot pray as I would. Oh, you don’t knew how
wretched I am!” and Maddy hid her face in the
352broad, motherly lap, sobbing so wildly that Mrs. Noah
was greatly perplexed how to act, or what to say.
Years ago, she would have spurned the thought
that the grandchild of the old man who had bowed to
his own picture, should be mistress of Aikenside; but
now, could she have had her way, she would have
stopped the marriage, and, bringing her boy home,
have given him to the young girl weeping so bitterly
in her lap. But Mrs. Noah could not have her way.
The bridal guests were, even then, assembling in that
home beyond the sea. She could not call Guy back,
and so she pitied and caressed the wretched Maddy,
saying to her, at last:
“I’ll tell you what is impressed on my mind; this
Lucy’s got the consumption, without any kind of
doubt, and if you’ve no objections to a widower, you
may——”
She did not finish the sentence, for Maddy started
in horror. To her there was something murderous in
the very idea, and she thrust it quickly aside. Guy
Remington was not for her, she said, and her wish was
to forget him. If she could get through the dreaded
to-morrow, she should do better. There had been a
load upon her the whole day, a nightmare she could
not shake off, and she had come to Lucy’s room, in the
353hope of leaving her burden there, of praying her pain
away. Would Mrs. Noah leave her awhile, and see
that no one came?
The good woman could not refuse, and going out,
she left Maddy by the window, watching the sun as it
went down, and then watching the wintry twilight
deepen over the landscape, until all things were
blended together in one great darkness, and Jessie,
seeking for her, found her at last fainting upon the
floor.
Maddy was glad of the racking headache which
kept her in her bed the whole of the next day, glad of
any excuse to stay away from the family, talking of
Guy, and what was transpiring in England. They
had failed to remember the difference in the longitude
of the two places; but Maddy forgot nothing, and
when the clock struck nine she called Mrs. Noah
to her and whispered faintly:
“They were to be married before twelve, you
know, so it was over two hours ago, and Guy is lost
forever!”
Mrs. Noah had no consolation to offer, and only
pressed the hot, feverish hands, while Maddy turned
her face to the wall, and did not speak again, except
354to whisper incoherently, as she half slumbered, half
woke:
“Did Guy think of me, when he promised to love
her, and does he, can he see how miserable I am?”
Maddy was indeed passing through deep waters,
and the day and the night of the fourth of December
were the longest, dreariest she ever knew, and could
never be forgotten. Once past, the worst was over,
and as the rarest metal is purified by fire, so Maddy
came from the dreadful ordeal strengthened for what
was before her. Both Agnes and Mrs. Noah noticed
the strangely beautiful expression of her face when
she came down to the breakfast room, while Jessie, as
she kissed her pale cheek, whispered:
“You look as if you had been with the angels.”
Guy was not expected with his bride for two or
three weeks, and as the days dragged on, Maddy felt
that the waiting for him was more intolerable than
the seeing him with Lucy would be. Restless and impatient,
she could not remain quietly at the cottage—and
when at Aikenside, she longed to return again to
her own home; and in this way the time wore on, until
the anniversary of that day when she had come from
New York, and found Guy waiting for her at the station.
To stay that day in the house so rife with
355memories of the dead was impossible, and Flora was
surprised and delighted to hear that both were going
up to Aikenside in the vehicle hired of Farmer Green,
whose son officiated as driver. It was nearly noon
when they reached their destination, meeting at the
gate with Flora’s brother Tom, who said to them:
“We’ve heard from Mr. Guy; the ship is in;
they’ll be here to-night, and Mrs. Noah is turnin’
things upside down with the dinner.”
Leaning back in the buggy, Maddy felt for a
moment as if she were dying. Never until then
had she realized how, all the while, she had been
clinging to an indefinable hope, a presentiment that
something might yet occur to spare her from a long
lifetime of pain, such as lay before her, if Guy were
really lost; but the bubble had burst, leaving her
nothing to hope, nothing to cling to, nothing but
black despair; and half bewildered, she received the
noisy greeting of Jessie, who met her at the door, and
dragged her into the drawing-room, decorated with
flowers from the hot-house, and told her to guess who
was coming.
“I know; Tom told me; Guy is coming with
Lucy,” Maddy answered, and relieving herself from
356Jessie, she turned to Agnes, asking where Mrs. Noah
was, and if she might go to her for a moment.
“Oh, Maddy, child, I’m sorry you’ve come to-day,”
Mrs. Noah said, as she chafed Maddy’s cold hands,
and leading her to the fire, made her sit down, while
she untied her hood, and removed her cloak and furs.
“I did not know it, or I should not have come,”
Maddy replied; “I shall not stay, as it is. I cannot
see them to-day. Charlie will drive me back before
the train is due. But what did he say? And how is
Lucy?”
“He did not mention her. There’s the dispatch,”
and Mrs. Noah handed to Maddy the telegram, received
that morning, and which was simply as follows:
“The steamer is in. Shall be at the station at five
o’clock P. M.
“Guy Remington.”
Twice Maddy read it over, experiencing much the
same feeling she would have experienced had it been
her death warrant she was reading.
“At five o’clock. I must go before that,” she
said, sighing as she remembered how, one year ago
357that day, she was traveling over the very route where
Guy was now traveling with his bride. Did he think
of it? think of his long waiting at the depot, or of
that memorable ride to Honedale, the events of which
grew more and more distinct in her memory, making
her cheeks burn even now, as she recalled his many
acts of tenderness and care.
Laying the telegram on the table, she went with
Mrs. Noah through the rooms, warmed and made
ready for the bride, lingering longest in Lucy’s, which
the bridal decorations, and the bright fire blazing in
the grate, made singularly inviting. As yet, there
were no flowers there, and Maddy claimed the privilege
of arranging them for this room herself. Agnes
had almost stripped the conservatory; but Maddy
found enough to form a most tasteful bouquet, which
she placed upon a marble dressing table; then within
a slip of paper which she folded across the top, she
wrote:
“Welcome to the bride.”
“They both will recognize my handwriting;
they’ll know I’ve been here,” she thought, as with one
long, last, sad look at the room, she walked away.
They were laying the table for dinner now, and
with a kind of dizzy, uncertain feeling, Maddy
358watched the servants hurrying to and fro, bringing
out the choicest china, and the glittering silver, in
honor of the bride. Comparatively, it was not long
since, a little, frightened, homesick girl, she first sat
down with Guy at that table, from which the proud
Agnes would have banished her; but it seemed to her
an age, so much of happiness and pain had come to
her since then. There was a place for her there now,
near Guy; but she should not fill it. She could not
stay; and she astonished Agnes and Jessie, just as
they were going to make their dinner toilet, by announcing
her intention of going home. She was not
dressed to meet Mrs. Remington, she said, shuddering
as for the first time she pronounced a name which the
servants had frequently used, and which jarred on her
ear every time she heard it. She was not dressed
appropriately to meet an English lady. Flora of
course would stay, she said, as it was natural she
should, to greet her new mistress; but she must go;
and finding Charlie Green she bade him bring round
the buggy.
Agnes was not particularly surprised, for a vague
suspicion of something like the truth had gradually
been creeping into her brain, as she noted Maddy’s
pallid face, and the changes which passed over it
359whenever Guy was mentioned. Agnes pitied Maddy
for in her own heart there was a little burning spot,
when she remembered who was to accompany Dr.
Holbrook. So she did not urge her to remain, and
she tried to hush Jessie’s lamentations when she heard
Maddy was going.
One long, sad, wistful look at Guy’s and Lucy’s
home, and Maddy followed Charlie to the buggy waiting
for her, and bade him drive rapidly, as there was
every indication of a coming storm.
The gray, wintry afternoon was drawing to a close,
and the December night was shutting down upon the
Honedale hills in sleety rain, when the cottage was
reached, and Maddy, passing up the narrow, slippery
walk, entered the cold, dreary room, where there was
neither fire nor light, nor friendly voice to greet her.
No sound save the ticking of the clock; no welcome
save the purring of the house cat, who came crawling
at her feet as she knelt before the stove and tried to
kindle the fire. Charlie Green had offered to go in
and do this for her, as indeed he had offered to return
and stay all night, but she had declined, preferring to
be alone, and with stiffened fingers she laid the kindlings
Flora had prepared, and then applying the
360match, watched the blue flame as it gradually licked
up the smoke and burst into a cheerful blaze.
“I shall feel better when it’s warm,” she said,
crouching over the fire, and shivering with more than
bodily cold.
There was a kind of nameless terror stealing over
her as she sat thinking of the years ago when the
inmates of three graves across the meadow were there
beneath that very roof where she now sat alone.
“I’ll strike a light,” she said, rising to her feet,
and trying not to glance at the shadowy corners filling
her with fear.
The lamp was found, and its friendly beams soon
dispersed the darkness from the corners and the fear
from Maddy’s heart, but it could not drive from her
mind thoughts of what might at that moment be
transpiring at Aikenside. If the bride and groom
came at all that night, she knew they must have been
there for an hour or more, and in fancy she saw the
tired, but happy Lucy, as in her pleasant room she
made her toilet for dinner, with Guy standing by and
looking on. Did he smile approvingly upon his young
wife? Did his eye, when it rested on her, light up
with the same expression she had seen so often when
it looked at her? Did he commend her taste and say
361his little wife was beautiful, as he kissed her fair
white cheek, or was there a cloud upon his handsome
face, a shadow on his heart, heavy with thoughts of
her, and would he rather it were Maddy there in the
bridal room? If so, his burden was hard indeed, but
not so hard as hers, and kneeling on the floor, poor
Maddy laid her head in the chair, and, ‘mid piteous
moans, asked God, her Father, to help them both
to bear—help her and Guy—making the latter love as
he ought the gentle girl who had left home and
friends to live with him in a far distant land; asked,
too, that she might tear from her heart every sinful
thought, loving Guy only as she might love the husband
of another.
The prayer ended, Maddy still sat upon the floor,
while over her pale face the lamplight faintly flickered,
showing the dark lines beneath her eyes and the
tear-stains on her cheek. Without, the storm still was
raging, and the wintry rain, mingled with sleet and
snow, beat piteously against the curtained windows,
while the wind howled mournfully as it shook the door,
and sweeping past the cottage went screaming over
the hill. But Maddy heard nothing of the tumult.
She had brought a pillow from the bed-room, and
placing it upon the chair, sat down again upon
362the floor and rested her head upon it. She did
not even know that her pet cat had crept up beside
her, purring contentedly, and occasionally licking her
hair, much less did she hear above the storm the swift
tread of horses’ feet as some one came dashing down
the road, the rider pausing an instant as he caught a
glimpse of the cottage lamp, and then hurrying on to
the public-house beyond, where the hostler frowned
moodily at being called out to care for the horse of a
stranger, who went back on foot to where the cottage
lamp shone a beacon light through the inky darkness.
The stranger reached the little gate, and undoing
the fastening, went hurrying up the walk, his step
upon the crackling snow catching Maddy’s ear at last
and making her wonder who could be coming there
on such a night as this. It was probably Charlie
Green, she said, and with a feeling of impatience at
being intruded upon she rose to her feet just as the
door turned upon its hinges, letting in a powerful
draught of wind which extinguished the light, and
left her in total darkness.
But it did not matter. Maddy had caught a sound,
a peculiar cough, which froze the blood in her veins
and made her quake with terror quite as much as if
the footsteps hurrying towards her had been the footsteps
363of the dead, instead of belonging, as she knew
they did, to Guy Remington—who, with garments saturated
with rain, felt for her in the darkness, and
found her where from faintness she had crouched
again beside the chair, and drawing her closely to him
in a passionate, almost painful embrace, said, so tenderly,
so lovingly:
“Maddy, my darling, my own! We shall never
be parted again.”
CHAPTER XXIII. LUCY.
364
Hours went by, and the hands of the clock
pointed to twelve, ere Maddy compelled
herself to hear the story Guy had come to
tell. She had thrust him from her at first, speaking
to him of Lucy, his wife, and Guy had answered her,
“I have no wife—I never had one. Lucy is in
Heaven;” and that was all Maddy knew until the
great shock had spent itself in tears and sobs, which
became almost convulsions as she tried to realize the
fact that Lucy Atherstone was dead; that the bridal
robe about which she had written with girlish frankness
proved to be her shroud, and that her head that
night was not pillowed on Guy’s arm, but resting
under English turf and beneath an English sky. She
could listen at last, but her breath came in panting
gasps; while Guy told her how, on the very morning
of the bridal, Lucy had greeted him with her usual
bright smile, appearing and looking better than he
had seen her look since he reached her mother’s
home; how for an hour they sat together alone in a
365little room sacred to her, because years before it was
there he confessed his love.
Seated on a low ottoman, with her golden head
lying on his lap, she had this morning told him, in her
artless way, how much she loved him, and how hard it
sometimes was to make her love for the creature
second to her love for the Creator; told him she was
not faultless, and asked that when he found how
erring and weak she was, he would bear with her
frailties as she would bear with his; talked with him,
too, of Maddy Clyde, confessing, in a soft, low tone,
how once or twice a pang of jealousy had wrung her
heart when she read his praises of his pupil. But she
had conquered that; she had prayed it all away, and
now, next to her own sister, she loved Maddy Clyde.
Other words, too, were spoken—words of guileless,
pure affection, too sacred even for Guy to breathe to
Maddy; and then Lucy had left him, her bounding
step echoing through the hall and up the winding
stairs, down which she never came again alive, for
when Guy next looked upon her, she was lying white
and still, her neck and dress and golden hair stained
with the pale life-blood oozing from her livid lips.
A blood-vessel had been suddenly ruptured, the physician
said, adding that it was what he had been fearing
366for some time, and now it had come—and there was
no hope. They told her she must die, for the mother
would have them tell her. Once, for a few moments,
there was on her face a frightened look, such as a
harmless bird might wear when suddenly caught in a
snare. But that soon passed away as from beneath
the closed eyelids the great tears came gushing, and
the stained lips whispered faintly:
“God knows best what is right. Poor Guy!—break
it gently to him.”
At this point in the story Guy broke down entirely,
sobbing as only strong men can sob.
“Maddy,” he said, “I felt like a heartless wretch—a
most consummate hypocrite—as, standing by
Lucy’s side, I met the fond, pitying glance of her
blue eyes, and suffered the poor little hand to part my
hair as she tried to comfort me, even though every
word she uttered was shortening her life; tried to
comfort me, the wretch who was there so unwillingly,
and who at this prospect of release hardly knew at
first whether he was more sorry than glad. You may
well start from me in horror, Maddy. I was just the
wretch I describe; but I overcame it, Maddy, and
Heaven is my witness that no thought of you intruded
itself upon me afterwards as I stood by my dying
367Lucy. I saw how good, how sweet she was, and
something of the old love came back to me, as I held
her in my arms, where she wished to be. I would
have saved her if I could: and when I called her
‘my darling Lucy’ they were not idle words. I kissed
her many times for myself, and once, Maddy, for you.
She told me to do so. She whispered, ‘Kiss me, Guy,
for Maddy Clyde. Tell her I’d rather she should take
my place than anybody else—rather my Guy should
call her wife—for I know she would not be jealous if
you sometimes talked of your dead Lucy, and I know
she will help lead you to that blessed home where
sorrow never comes.’ That was the last she ever
spoke, and when the sun went down death had
claimed my bride. She died in my arms, Maddy. I
felt the last fluttering of her pulse, the last beat of her
heart. I laid her back upon her pillows. I wiped the
blood from her lips and from her golden curls. I followed
her to her early grave. I saw her buried from
my sight, and then, Maddy, I started home; thoughts
of you and thoughts of Lucy blended equally together
until Aikenside was reached. I talked with Mrs.
Noah; I heard all of you there was to tell, and then I
talked with Agnes, who was not greatly surprised,
and did not oppose my coming here to-night. I could
368not remain there, knowing you were here alone, even
though some old fogies might say it was not proper—God
knows what is in my heart. In the bridal
chamber I found your bouquet, with its ‘Welcome to
the Bride.’ Maddy, you must be that bride. Lucy
sanctioned it, and the doctor, too, for I told him all.
His own wedding was, of course, deferred, and he did
not come home with me, but he said ‘Tell Maddy not
to wait. Life is too short to waste any happiness.
She has my blessing.’ And, Maddy, it must be so.
Aikenside needs a mistress; you are all alone. You
are mine—mine forever!”
The storm had died away, and the moonbeams
stealing through the window told that morning was
breaking, but neither Guy nor Maddy heeded the
lapse of time. Theirs was a sad kind of happiness as
they sat talking together, and could Lucy have listened
to them she would have felt satisfied that she was not
forgotten. One long bright curl, cut from her head
by his own hand, was all there was left of her to Guy
save the hallowed memories of her purity and goodness—memories
which would yet mold the proud,
impulsive man into the earnest, consistent Christian
which Lucy in her life had desired that he should be
and which Maddy rejoiced to see him.
CHAPTER XXIV. FINALE.
369
It is the close of a calm September afternoon,
and the autumnal sunlight falls
softly upon Aikenside, where a gay party
is now assembled. For four years Maddy Clyde has
been mistress there, and in looking back upon them
she wonders how so much happiness as she has known
could be experienced in so short a time. Never but
once has the slightest ripple of sorrow shadowed her
heart, and that was when her noble husband, Guy, said
to her, in a voice she knew was earnest and determined,
that he could no longer remain deaf to his country’s
call—that where the battle storm was raging he was
needed, and he must not stay at home. Then for
a brief season her bright face was overcast, and her
brown eyes dim with weeping. Giving him to the
war seemed like giving him up to death. But women
can be as true heroes as men; and stifling her own
370grief, Maddy sent him away with smiles and prayers
and cheering words of encouragement, turning herself
for consolation to the source from which she never
sued for peace in vain; and, save that she missed her
husband terribly, she was not lonely, for her beautiful
dark-eyed boy, whom they called Guy, junior, kept
her busy, while not many weeks after her husband’s
departure, Guy read with moistened eyes of a little
golden-haired daughter, whom Maddy had named
Lucy Atherstone, and gazed upon a curl of hair she
inclosed, asking if it were not like some other hair
now moldering back to dust within an English
churchyard. “Maggie says it is,” she wrote, alluding
to the wife of Dr. Holbrook, who had come to Aikenside
to stay, while her husband also did his duty as
surgeon in the army. That little daughter is a year-old
baby now, and in her short white dress and coral
bracelets sits neglected on the nursery floor, while her
mother and Jessie and Maggie Holbrook hasten out
into the yard, to welcome the returning soldier, Major
Guy whose arm is in a sling, and whose face is very
pale from the effects of wounds received at Gettysburg,
where his daring courage had well-nigh won for
Maddy a widow’s heritage. For the present the arm
371is disabled, and so he has been discharged, and has
come back to the home where warm words of welcome
greet him, from the lowest servant up to his darling
wife, who can only look her joy as he folds her in his
well arm, and kisses her beautiful face. Only Margaret
Holbrook seems a little sad, for she had hoped her
husband would come with Guy, but his humanity
would not permit him to leave the suffering beings
who needed his care. Loving messages he sent to her,
and her tears were dried when she heard from Guy
how greatly he was beloved by the pale occupants
of the beds of pain, and how much he was doing
to relieve their anguish.
Jessie, grown to be a most beautiful girl of nearly
sixteen, is still a child in actions, and, wild with delight
at seeing her brother again, throws her arms
around his neck, telling, in almost the same breath,
how proud she is of him, how much she wished to go
to him when she heard he was wounded, how she
wished she was a boy, so she could enlist, how nicely
Flora is married and settled at the cottage in Honedale,
and then asks if he knows anything of the Confederate
Colonel to whom just before the war broke
out her mother was married, and whose home was in
Richmond.
372Guy knows nothing of him, except that he is still
fighting for the Confederacy, but from exchanged
prisoners, who had come in from Richmond, he has
heard of a beautiful lady, an officer’s wife, and as
rumor said, a Northern woman, who visited them in
prison, speaking kind words of sympathy to all, and
once binding up a drummer boy’s aching head with a
handkerchief, which he still retained as a memento of
her, and on whose corner could be faintly traced the
name of “Agnes Remington.”
Jessie’s eyes are full of tears as she says:
“Dear mamma. It’s months since I heard from
her direct. Of course it was she who was so good to
the drummer boy. She cannot be so very bad,” and
Jessie glances triumphantly at Mrs. Noah, who, never
having quite overcome her dislike of Agnes, had
sorely tried Jessie by declaring that her mother “had
found her level at last, and was just where she wanted
to be.”
Good Mrs. Noah! The ancient man, whose name
she bore, would as soon have thought of leaving the
Ark, as she of turning traitor to her country, and when
she heard of the riotous mob raised against the draft,
she talked seriously of going in person to New York
373“to give ’em a piece of her mind,” and for one whole
day refused to speak to Flora’s husband, because he was
a “dum dimocrat,” and she presumed wanted the south
to beat. With the exception of Maddy, no one was
more pleased to see Guy than herself. He was her
boy, the one she brought up, and with a mother’s
fervor she kissed his bronzed cheek, and told him how
glad she was to have him back.
With his boy on his sound arm, Guy disengaged
himself from the noisy group and went with Maddy
to where the child he had never seen was just beginning
to show signs of resentment at being left so long
alone.
“Lulu, sissy, papa’s come; this is papa,” the little
boy cried, assuming the honor of the introduction.
Lulu, as they called her, was not afraid of the tall
soldier, and stretching out her fat, white hands, went
to him readily. Blue-eyed and golden-haired, she
bore but little resemblance to either father or mother,
but there was a sweet, beautiful face, of which Maddy
had often dreamed, but never seen, and whether it
were fancy or not, Guy thought it beamed upon him
again in the infantile features of his little girl. Parting
lovingly her yellow curls and kissing her fair
374cheek, he said to Maddy softly, just as he always
spoke of that dead one:
“Yes, darling, Margaret Holbrook is right—our
baby daughter is very much like our dear lost Lucy
Atherstone.”
THE END.
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THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP.
By Henry Seton Merriman. Author of “The Sowers,”
“Young Mistley,” “Dross,” etc. There is a ring and thrill
to this story due in part to its unusual theme. It is written
with all the characteristic power of the author, and will meet
a tremendous sale. Illustrated and Cloth bound, gilt top.
1.50
THE SACRIFICE OF SILENCE.
By Edouard Rod. Translated by John W. Harding. M. Rod
shows, with consummate art and in two widely contrasting
examples, that silence under certain conditions constitutes a
heroic sacrifice, so generous in its abnegation, and in one case,
in which the unblemished reputation of a wife and mother is
involved, so unflinchingly steadfast, as to impart a character
of nobleness and grandeur to the sin of prohibited love and
its inevitable accompaniments, lying, deceit and hypocrisy.
Cloth bound, gilt top.
1.50
A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY.
By John Oxenham. Author of “God’s Prisoner.” A story
that will win thousands of admirers. It is an artistic conception;
a true romance, which has about it a quality of real life.
It is a dramatic tale equal in many respects to the “Prisoner
of Zenda,” and fully as interesting. Cloth bound, gilt top.
1.50
THE MAN WHO DARED.
By John P. Ritter. Mr. Ritter has achieved a work of rare
interest. It is a great historical picture of the time of Robespierre,
in which fact and fancy are welded together in a fine
realization of the spirit of the times. It has all the elements
of a genuine romance, and is an unusually fascinating historical
romance. Illustrated. Cloth bound, gilt top.
1.25
THE DAY OF TEMPTATION.
By Wm. Le Queux. This is one of this author’s best stories.
It is thrilling and realistic, and bears out a mystery which
carries the reader through a labyrinth of strange experiences.
Cloth bound.
1.50
THE STORY OF THE ROUGH RIDERS.
By Edward Marshall. The most intensely interesting book of
modern times. It is devoted entirely to this one famous regiment.
It contains a complete roster of the regiment, and is
profusely illustrated from photographs and drawings. Cloth
bound.
1.50
WATERS THAT PASS AWAY.
By N. B. Winston. “There is a deep lesson of life to be
learned from a book like this, and in it one may study character,
and the infallible trend of social consequences, sorrow
ever following sin, and sin in its turn yielding to joy when
true repentance follows after.”—Philadelphia Item. Cloth
bound.
1.25
THE RETURN OF THE O’MAHONY.
By Harold Frederic. To those who have read “The Damnation
of Theron Ware,” and “Seth’s Brother’s Wife,” there
will be found in this extremely delightful novel, “The Return
of the O’Mahony,” a book that will gratify the reader
much more than any other book of the times. Illustrated, and
with portrait of the author. Cloth bound, deckle edge, gilt
top.
1.50
A CHEQUE FOR THREE THOUSAND.
By Arthur Henry Veysey. (Tenth edition.) It’s a jolly good
story, bright and clear. Dramatic, full of life and action and
a brilliant farce from end to end. You cannot put it down
until you finish it, and you will mention it many a time when
you want to relate something novel and odd among your
friends. Attractively bound in cloth.
1.00
A PEDIGREE IN PAWN.
By Arthur Henry Veysey. Author of “A Cheque for Three
Thousand,” which has run into its seventh edition. Original,
bright, sparkling fun runs all through “A Pedigree in Pawn.”
It will be talked about and laughed over more than any other
book of the year. Illustrated with 14 character drawings.
Cloth bound.
1.25
HATS OFF.
By Arthur Henry Veysey. Author of “A Cheque for Three
Thousand,” etc. A splendid story for summer reading. Are
you tired, blue? Read Hats Off! Do you want a story
for the hammock? Read Hats Off! Do you want a story
with “go,” with an original plot? Read Hats Off! Do you
want to laugh? Read Hats Off!
Cloth bound. 1.25
Paper covers. 50
THE STATEROOM OPPOSITE.
By Arthur Henry Veysey. Author of “A Cheque for Three
Thousand,” etc. Is a well balanced detective story. It is
not overdrawn as such books usually are, but full of mysterious
and vital interest. It is a departure from Mr. Veysey’s previous
humorous style in “A Cheque for Three Thousand,” and “A
Pedigree in Pawn,” proving him to be a remarkably versatile
writer. Most of the events take place on shipboard. It is a
powerful story, with a most dramatic climax, and inimitably
original characters.
Cloth bound. 1.25
Paper covers. 50
CLEO THE MAGNIFICENT; or, The Muse of the Real.
By Louis Zangwill. The Boston Times says: “The story is
drawn with a master hand and the characters stand forth in
clear relief. It is in every way worthy of Mr. Zangwill’s
reputation.” One of the best novels of the year. Cloth
bound.
1.50
THE DRONES MUST DIE.
By Max Nordau. Sixth Edition. “As purely original as if no
other novel had ever been written. The open secret of such
writing is that it is the result of the experience and the observation
of one of the keenest observers—a man who exaggerates
nothing and sets down naught in malice, but sees with
incomparable clearness, and writes down what he sees.”—The
Bookseller and Newsman.
2.00
TWO ODD GIRLS.
A charming novel, by John A. Peters. A bright, clever and
interesting story is this, with a vein of humor underlying and
running through it. The style of the novel is brilliant and
will be read with pleasure and avidity by all who peruse its
first page. Cloth bound.
1.50
MOTHER TRUTH’S MELODIES.
By Mrs. E. P. Miller. A kindergarten of the most useful
knowledge for children, 450 illustrations. “Every lover of
children and of truth will be interested in this charming book;
every house in the land should have a copy; it will entertain
and instruct more truly and more sensibly than any other
book. It is made up of simple stories in verse, the jingle of
which may be music in the children’s ears, and the pictures a
delight to little eyes; made in a form to attract the attention
of the smallest children, and one to readily fix in their memory
the stories told.” Cloth bound.
1.50
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY COOK BOOK.
By Mrs. C. F. Moritz and Adele Kahn. A modern and complete
household cook book such as this is, since cooking has
come to be a science no less than an art must find a welcome
and become the most popular cook book of all the many now
published.
“It can hardly be realized that there is anything worth eating
that its receipt cannot be found in this volume. This volume
has been carefully compiled and contains not only the receipts
for an elaborate menu, but also the modest ones have
been considered.”—Bookseller and Newsman. Bound in oil
cloth, for kitchen use.
1.50
THE WHITE DEVIL OF VERDE.
By Lucie France Pierce. This is a story of pure love and
stirring action. It is crisp, bright, often thrilling and is exceptionally
well-written, the style is clear, and the plot distinctly
life-like. There is not a character introduced that does
not make an immediate and successful appeal to the imagination
of the reader. It is a delightful tale of Western life.
Cloth bound.
1.25
TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES.
From the Pinkerton Archives. By Cleveland Moffett. The
absorbing stories told here by Mr. Moffett are statements of
actual facts repeated without exaggeration or false coloring.
The author, by the help of the Pinkerton Agency, has given
the inside history of famous cases which the general public
only know of through newspaper accounts. Cloth bound.
.75
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ARTEMUS WARD.
(Charles Farrar Browne.)
With a biographical sketch of the author by Melville D. Landon.
The present edition is of a work which has been for
more than thirty years prominently before the public, and
which may justly be said to have maintained a standard character.
It is issued because of a demand for a better edition
than has ever been published.
In order to supply this acknowledged want, the publishers have
enlarged and perfected this edition by adding some matter
not heretofore published in book form.
A large 12mo. printed from new electro plates, with 28 full page
illustrations, and Photogravure Portrait of the author, handsomely
bound in cloth, gilt top.
2.00
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.
By Madeleine Lucette Ryley. The fact that the play of “An
American Citizen” has had the most successful run of any
modern drama should guarantee a wide sale of this book. The
talented and successful writer has displayed a wonderful skill
in developing the plot, all the outlines of the play are artistically
rounded into a complete novel, which the reader will
find intensely interesting from the first line to the end. Cloth
bound.
1.50
THE RAINBOW FEATHER.
By Fergus Hume. Author of “The Mystery of a Hansom
Cab,” “Claude Duval of Ninety-five,” etc., etc. Published
simultaneously with the London edition. This is a wonderfully
clever story, intensely interesting, the mystery is kept up
to the end, and when the reader lays down the book it is with
the satisfaction of having been fully entertained by a remarkably
fascinating tale. Cloth bound.
1.25
HOUSES OF GLASS.
By Wallace Lloyd, M.D. It is more important than most
books, and deserves special attention for several reasons.
From a purely literary standpoint it has claims, being exceedingly
well-written, and most profoundly felt. Besides being
founded upon philosophy, the story is firm, clear-cut, and so
interesting as to lift the book far above the level of ordinary
romances. Cloth bound.
1.50
BEVERLY OSGOOD; or, When the Great City is Awake.
By Jane Valentine. This romance sets forth New York life
as seen by a student of city conditions of both rich and poor.
In Nina Palermo, the heroine, is a convincing illustration of
the fearful effect of evil circumstances on the life of an innocent
and beautiful but poor girl. The wide influence of truly
good and Christian women toward uplifting the fallen and
quietly aiding reform, is also portrayed in the character of
“My Lady.” It is a work which should do much good.
Cloth bound.
1.50
MY FRIEND THE CAPTAIN; or, Two Yankees in Europe.
By W. L. Terhune. The book is one which has much value
as a guide book for people going abroad. It has much of interest
to those who have never been abroad. Mr. Terhune’s
camera served him well, and the book is embellished with
a hundred or more illustrations from his photographs. Cloth
bound.
1.50
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
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