Dr. Holbrook knew very little of girls, 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 knowing 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 that maiden’s teeth, than to have set himself up before her like some horrid ogre, asking what she knew. But the choice was not his, and, turning to the boy, he said, laconically, “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 his message, said to the old man, “Now, grandpa, we’ll go home. I know you must be tired.”
Slowly Sorrel trotted down the street, the blue ribbons fluttering in the wind, while one little ungloved hand was seen 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-ish kind of a girl, and very good to her grandfather. But what should he ask her, and how demean himself toward her? Monday afternoon was frightfully near, he thought, as this was only Saturday; and then, feeling that he must be ready, he brought out from the trunk, where, since his arrival in Devonshire, they had bean quietly lying, books enough to have frightened an older person than poor little Madeline Clyde, riding slowly home with grandpa, 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 “Parley’s History,” which she knew by heart. How she would have trembled could she have seen the formidable volumes heaped upon his 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 others, into which poor Madeline had never so much as looked. Arranging them in a row, and half wishing himself back again to 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 approach of something.
Could it be Sorrel and the square-boxed wagon? Oh, no; far different from grandfather Clyde’s turnout was the stylish carriage and the spirited bays dashing down the street, the colored driver reining them suddenly, not before the office door, but just in front of the white cottage in the same yard, the house where Dr. Holbrook boarded, and where, if he ever married 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 friend,” and a very proper sigh escaped Agnes Remington’s lips as she pushed a little curly-haired girl toward Dr. Holbrook.
The lady of the house had spied them by this time, and came running down the walk to meet her rather distinguished visitor, wondering, it may be, to what she was indebted for this call from one who, since her marriage with the supposed wealthy Dr. Remington, had rather cut 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 very 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 her just now; he had other matters to talk about, and so, jamming his penknife 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.”
“Oh, yes. She got over 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, or my father’s,” was Guy Remington’s reply; whereupon the penknife 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 continued: “She’ll hardly marry again, though she may. She’s young—not over twenty-six—-
“Twenty-eight, if the family Bible does not lie; but she’d never forgive me if she knew I told you that. So let it pass that she’s twenty-six. She certainly is not more than three 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 stepmother’s anxiety to visit plain Mrs. Conner that afternoon. But the doctor only laughed merrily at the idea of his being father to Guy, his college chum and long-tried friend.