“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 with 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 light 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 arms 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.