Those were dark, wearisome days to Maddy, and the long, cold winter
was gone from the New England hills, and the early buds of spring were
coming up by the cottage door, the neighbors began to talk of the
change which had come over the young girl, once so full of life and
health, but now so languid and pale. Still Maddy was not unhappy, nor
was the discipline too severe, for by it she learned at last the great
object of life; learned to take her troubles and cares to One who
helped her bear them so cheerfully, that those who pitied her most
never dreamed how heavy was her burden, so patiently and sweetly she
bore it. Occasionally there came to her letters from the doctor, but
latterly they gave her less pleasure than pain, for as sure as she
read one of his kind, friendly messages of sympathy and remembrance,
the tempter whispered to her that though she did not love him as she
ought to love her husband, yet a life with him was far preferable to
the life she was living, and a receipt of his letters always gave her
a pang which lasted until Guy came down to see her, when it usually
disappeared. Agnes was now at Aikenside, and thus Maddy frequently had
Jessie at the cottage, but Agnes never came, and Maddy little guessed
how often the proud woman cried herself to sleep after listening to
Jessie's recital of all Maddy had to do for the crazy man, and how
patiently she did it. He had taken a fancy that Maddy must tell him
stories of Sarah, describing her as she was now, not as she used to be
when he knew her, but now. "What is she now? How does she look? What
does she wear? Tell me, tell me!" he would plead, until Maddy, forced
to tell him something, and having distinctly in her mind but one
fashionable woman such as she fancied Sarah might be, told him of
Agnes Remington, describing her as she was in her mature beauty, with
her heavy flowing curls, her brilliant color, her flashing diamonds
and costly laces, and Uncle Joseph, listening to her with parted lips
and hushed breath, would whisper softly, "Yes, that's Sarah, beautiful
Sarah; but tell me--does she ever think of me, or of that time in Hie
orchard when I wove the apple blossoms in her hair, where the diamonds
are now? She loved me then; she told me so. Does she know how sick,
and sorry, and foolish I am?--how the aching in my poor, simple brain
is all for her, and how you, Maddy, are doing for me what it is her
place to do? Had I a voice," and the crazy man now grew excited, as,
raising himself in bed, he gesticulated wildly, "had I a voice to
reach her, I'd cry shame on her, to let you do her work, let you-wear
your young life and fresh, bright beauty all away for me, whom she
ruined."