For a moment the doctor was sorely tempted to keep the credit thus
enthusiastically given; but he was too truthful for that, and so
watching her as her eyes glistened with pleased excitement, he said: "I am glad you like them, Miss Clyde, and so will Mr. Remington be. He
sent them to you from his conservatory."
"Not Mr. Remington from Aikenside--not Jessie's brother?" and Maddy's
eyes now fairly danced as they sought the doctor's face.
"Yes Jessie's brother. He came here with her. He is interested in you,
and brought these down this morning."
"It was Jessie, I guess, who sent them," Maddy suggested, but the
doctor persisted that it was Guy.
"He wished me to present them with his compliments. He thought they
might please you."
"Oh! they do, they do!" Maddy replied. "They almost make me well. Tell
him how much I thank him, and like him too, though I never saw him."
The doctor opened his lips to tell her she had seen him, but changed
his mind ere the words were uttered. She might not think as well of
Guy, he thought, and there was no harm in keeping it back.
So Maddy had no suspicion that the face she thought of so much
belonged to Guy Remington. She had never seen him, of course; but she
hoped she would some time, so as to thank him for his generosity to
her grandfather and his kindness to herself. Then, as she remembered
the message she had sent him, she began to think that it sounded too
familiar, and said to the doctor: "If you please, don't tell Mr. Remington that I said I liked him--only
that I thank him. He would think it queer for a poor girl like me to
send such word to him. He is very rich, and handsome, and splendid,
isn't he?"
"Yes, Guy's rich and handsome, and everybody likes him. We were in
college together."
"You were?" Maddy exclaimed. "Then you know him well, and Jessie, and
you've been to Aikenside often? There's nothing in the world I want so
much as to go to Aikenside. They say it is so beautiful."
"Maybe I'll carry you up there some day when you are strong enough to
ride," the doctor answered, thinking of his light buggy at home, and
wondering he had not used it more, instead of always riding on
horseback.
Dr. Holbrook looked much older than he was, and to Maddy he seemed
quite fatherly, so that the idea of riding with him, aside from the
honor it might be to her, struck her much as riding with Farmer Green
would have done. The doctor, too, imagined that his proposition was
prompted solely from disinterested motives, but he found himself
wondering how long it would be before Maddy would be able to ride a
little distance, just over the hill and back. He was tiring her all
out talking to her; but somehow it was very delightful there in that
sick room, with the summer sunshine stealing through the window and
falling upon the soft reddish-brown head resting on the pillows. Once
he fixed those pillows, arranging them so nicely that grandma, who had
come in from her hens and yeast cakes, declared "he was as handy as a
woman," and after receiving a few general directions with regard to
the future, "guessed, if he wasn't in a hurry, she'd leave him with
Maddy a spell, as there were a few chores she must do."