"Take them to him, will you?" and her hand shook as she passed to
Grandpa Markham the gift which would thrill poor crazy Joseph with a
strange delight, making him hold converse a while with the unseen
presence which he called "she," and then whisper blessings on the
madam's head. Three days after this, a party of four left Aikenside,
which presented a most forlorn and cheerless appearance to the
passers-by, who were glad almost as the servants when, at the
expiration of a week, Guy came back and took up his olden life of
solitude and loneliness, with nothing in particular to interest him,
except his books the letters he wrote to Lucy; unless, indeed, it were
those he was going to write to Maddy, who, with Jessie, had promised
to become his correspondents. Nothing but these and the picture--the
doctor's picture--the one designed expressly for him, and which
troubled him greatly. Believing that he had fully intended it for the
doctor, Guy felt as if it were, in a measure, stolen property, and
this made him prize it all the more.
Now that Maddy was away, Guy missed her terribly, wondering how he had
ever lived without her, and sometimes working himself into a violent
passion against the meddlesome neighbors who would not let her remain
with him in peace, and who, now that she was gone, did not stop their
talking one whit. Of this last, however, he was ignorant, as there was
no one to tell him how people marveled more than ever, feeling
confident now that he was educating his own wife, and making sundry
hateful remarks as to what he intended doing with her relations. Guy
only knew that he was very lonely, that Lucy's letters seemed insipid,
that even the doctor failed to interest him, as of old, and that his
greatest comfort was in looking at the bright young face which seemed
to smile so trustfully upon him from the tiny casing, just as Maddy
had smiled upon him when, in Madam -----'s parlor, he bade her good-by.
The doctor could not have that picture, he finally decided. Hal
ought to be satisfied with getting Maddy, as of course he would, for
wasn't he educating her for that very purpose? Certainly he was, and,
as a kind of atonement for what he deemed treachery to his friend, he
talked with him often of her, always taking it for granted that when
she was old enough, the doctor would woo and win the little girl who
had come to him in his capacity of inspector, as candidate number one.