“Yes,” Maddy said, and after a little the doctor continued:
“By the way, Maddy, I have some idea of going to 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 they 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 out 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 Alice 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.”