Mrs. Berkley, Maude Glendower's aunt, had stinted herself to gratify her niece's whims, and their surroundings had always been of the most expensive kind, so it was not strange that Dr. Kennedy, accustomed only to ingrain carpet and muslin curtains, was dazzled by so much elegance. With a well-feigned start the lady arose to her feet, and going to his side offered him her hand, saying, "You are Dr. Kennedy, I am sure. I should have known you anywhere, for you are but little changed."
She meant to flatter his self-love, though, thanks to Maude Remington for having insisted upon the broadcloth suit, he looked remarkably well.
"She had not changed at all," he said, and the admiring gaze he fixed upon her argued well for her success. It becomes us not to tell how that strange wooing sped. Suffice it to say that at the expiration of an hour Maude Glendower had promised to be the wife of Dr. Kennedy when another spring should come. She had humbled herself to say that she regretted her girlish freak, and he had so far unbent his dignity as to say that he could not understand why she should be willing to leave the luxuries which surrounded her and go with him, a plain, old-fashioned man. Maude Glendower scorned to make him think that it was love which actuated her, and she replied, "Now that my aunt is dead, I have no natural protector. I am alone and want a home."
"But mine is so different," he said. "There are no silk curtains there, no carpets such as this—"
"Is Maude Remington there?" the lady asked, and in her large black eyes there was a dewy tenderness, as she pronounced that name.
"Maude Remington!—yes," the doctor answered. "Where did you hear of her? My sister told you, I suppose. Yes, Maude is there. She has lived with me ever since her mother died. You would have liked Matty, I think," and the doctor felt a glow of satisfaction in having thus paid a tribute to the memory of his wife.
"Is Maude like her mother?" the lady asked; a glow upon her cheek, and the expression of her face evincing the interest she felt in the answer.
"Not at all," returned the doctor. "Matty was blue-eyed and fair, while Maude is dark, and resembles her father, they say."
The white jeweled hands were clasped together, for a moment, and then Maude Glendower questioned him of the other one, Matty's child and his. Very tenderly the doctor talked of his unfortunate boy, telling of his soft brown hair, his angel face, and dreamy eyes.
"He is like Matty," the lady said, more to herself than her companion, who proceeded to speak of Nellie as a paragon of loveliness and virtue. "I shan't like her, I know," the lady thought, "but the other two," how her heart bounded at the thoughts of folding them to her bosom.