“I ought to have taken him in hand long ago;” then she came up to him and said kindly, soothingly, “We shall all miss Maddy; I as much as any one, but I do think it best for her to go to school; and so, after tea, I’ll manage to keep Jessie with me, and send Maddy to you, while you tell her about Lucy and the plan.”
Guy nodded a little jerking kind of a nod, in token of his assent, and then, with that perversity which prompts women particularly to press a subject after enough has been said upon it, Mrs. Noah, as she turned to leave the room, gave vent to the following:
“You know, Guy, as well as I, that, pretty as she is, Maddy is really beneath you, and no kind of a match, even if you wan’t as good as married, which you be;” and the good lady left the room in time to escape seeing the sparks fly up the chimney, as Guy now made a most vigorous use of the poker, and so did not finish the scorching process commenced on the end of his boot.
Mrs. Noah’s last remark awakened in Guy a singular train of thought. Maddy was his inferior as the world saw matters, and, settling himself in the chair, he tried to fancy what that same world would say if he should make Maddy his wife. Of course he had no such intentions, he was just imagining something which never could possibly happen, because in the first place he wouldn’t marry Maddy Clyde if he could, and he couldn’t if he would! Still, it was not an unpleasant occupation fancying what his friends, and especially Agnes, would say if he did, and so he sat dreaming about it until the bell rang for supper, when with a nervous start he woke from the reverie, and wishing the whole was over started for the supper room.
CHAPTER XIV.
MADDY AND LUCY.
Supper was over, and Guy had returned to his library. He had not stopped, as he usually did, to romp with Jessie or talk to Maddy Clyde, but had come directly back, dropping the heavy curtains and piling fresh coal upon the fire. Mrs. Noah had lighted the lamps and then gone after Maddy, explaining to Jessie that she must stay with her while Maddy went to Mr. Guy, who wanted to talk with her.
“Is he angry with me, Mrs. Noah?” Maddy asked, and, remembering his moody looks when she went in quest of the book, she felt her heart misgive her as to what might be the result of an interview with Guy.
Mrs. Noah, however, reassured her, and Maddy stole for a moment to her own room to see how she was looking. The crimson dress, with its soft edge of lace about the slender throat, became her well, and, smoothing the folds of her muslin apron, whose jaunty shoulder-pieces gave her a very girlish appearance, she went down to where Guy was waiting for her. He heard her coming, and involuntarily drew nearer to him the chair where he intended she should sit. But Maddy took instead a stool, and leaning her elbow on the chair, turned her face fully toward him, waiting for him to speak.
“Maddy,” he began, “are you happy here at Aikenside?”