“Oh, yes, very, very happy,” and Maddy’s soft eyes shone with the happiness she tried to express.
It was at least a minute before he spoke again, and when he did, he told her he had concluded to send her and Jessie to school, for a year or two at least; not that he was tired of teaching her, but it would be better for her, he thought, to mingle with other girls, and learn the ways of the world. Aikenside would still be her home, where her vacation would be spent with Jessie if she chose, and then he spoke of New York as the place he had in view, and asked her what she thought of it.
Maddy was too much stunned to think of anything at first. That the goal she had coveted most should be placed within her grasp, and by Guy Remington too, was almost too much to credit. She was happy at Aikenside, but she had never expected her life there would continue very long, and had often wished that when it ended she might devise some means of entering a seminary, as other young ladies did. But she had never dreamed of being sent to school by Guy, nor could she conceive of his motive. He hardly knew, himself, only he liked her, and wished to do something for her.
“Oh, Mr. Remington, you are so good to me; what makes you?” she cried; and then she told him how much she wished to be a teacher, so as to help take care of her grandparents and her poor Uncle Joseph. It seemed almost cruel for that young creature to be burdened with the care of those three half helpless people, and Guy shuddered just as he usually did when he associated Maddy with them, but when he listened while she told him of all the castles she had built, and in every one of which there was a place for “our folks,” as she termed them, it was more in the form of a blessing than a caress that his hand rested on her shining hair.
“You are a good girl, Maddy,” he said, “and I am glad now that I have concluded to send you where you can be better fitted for the office you mean to fill than you could be here, but I shall miss you sadly. I like little girls, and though you can hardly be classed with them now, you seem to be much like Jessie, and I take pleasure in doing for you as I would for her. Maddy,——”
Guy stopped, uncertain what to say next, while Maddy’s eyes again looked up inquiringly.
He was going now to tell “the little girl much like Jessie” of Lucy Atherstone, and the words would not come at first.
“Maddy,” he said, again blushing guiltily, “I have said I liked you, and so I hope will some one else. I have written of you to her.”
Up to this point Maddy had a vague idea that he meant the doctor, but the “her” dispelled that thought, and a most inexplicable feeling of numbness crept over her as she asked, faintly:
“Written to whom?”