"Oh, I love them so much," was the frank, impulsive answer, and ere ten minutes had passed away, Judge Thornton, for he it was, understood Maggie's character as well as if he had known her a lifetime.
Books, poetry, music, paintings, flowers, she worshiped them all, and without the slightest means either of gratifying her taste.
"I have in my library many choice books, to which you are welcome at any time when you will call at Greystone Hall," the stranger said at last.
"Greystone Hall!" gasped Maggie, the little red spots coming out all over her neck and face—"Greystone Hall!—then you must be—-"
"Judge Thornton, and your friend hereafter," answered the gentleman, offering his hand and bidding her good-by.
There are moments which leave their impress upon one's lifetime, changing instantaneously, as it were, our thoughts and feelings, and such an one had come to Maggie Lee, who was roused from a deep reverie by the shrill voice of her aunt, exclaiming, "Well, I've been on a Tom-fool's errand once in my life. Here I've waited in that hot depot over two trains, and heard at the last minute that Mrs. Thornton and her son came up last night, and I hain't seen them after all. It's too bad."
Very quietly Maggie told of the judge's call, repeating all the particulars of the interview; then stealing away to her chamber, she thought again, wondering where and what she would be three years from that day.
A year has passed away, and Graham Thornton, grown weary of his duties, has resigned the office of judge, and turned school-teacher, so the gossiping villagers say, and with some degree of truth, for regularly each day Maggie Lee and Ben go up to Greystone Hall, where they recite their lessons to its owner, though always in the presence of its lady mistress, who has taken a strange fancy to Maggie Lee, and whose white hand has more than once rested caressingly on the dark, glossy hair of the young girl. To a casual observer, the Maggie of sixteen is little changed from the Maggie of fifteen years; but to him, her teacher, she is not the same, for while in some respects she is more a woman and less a child, in everything pertaining to himself she is far more a child than when first he met her one short year ago. Then there was about her a certain self-reliance, which is now all gone, and he who has looked so often into the thoughts and feelings of that childish heart knows he can sway her at his will.
"But 'tis only a girlish friendship she feels for him," he says; "only a brotherly interest he entertains for her;" and so day after day she comes to his library, and on a low stool, her accustomed seat at his side, she drinks in new inspirations with which to feed that girlish friendship, while he, gazing down into her soft, brown, dreamy eyes, feels more and more how necessary to his happiness is her daily presence there. And if sometimes the man of the world asks himself "where all this will end?" his conscience is quieted by the answer that Maggie Lee merely feels toward him as she would toward any person who had done her a like favor. So all through the bright summer days and through the hazy autumn time, Maggie dreams on, perfectly happy, though she knows not why, for never yet has a thought of love for him entered her soul. She only knows that he to her is the dearest, best of friends, and Greystone Hall the loveliest spot on earth, but the wish that she might ever be its mistress has never been conceived.
With the coming of the holidays the lessons were suspended for a time, for there was to be company at the hall, and its master would need all his leisure.