“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 pretty, 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:
“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 Maddy 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?”