"That was Jessie's mother, Mrs. Agnes Remington," the doctor replied.
"She'll feel flattered with your compliment."
"I did not mean to flatter. I said what I thought. She is handsome,
beautiful, and so young, too. Was that a gold bracelet which flashed
so on her arm?"
The doctor presumed it was, though he had not noticed. Gold bracelets
were not new to him as they were to Maddy, who continued: "I wonder if I'll ever wear a bracelet like that?"
"Would you like to?" the doctor asked, glancing at the small white
wrist, around which the dark calico sleeve was closely buttoned, and
thinking how much prettier and modest-looking it was than Agnes'
half-bare arms, where the ornaments were flashing.
"Y-e-s," came hesitatingly from Maddy, who had a strong passion for
jewelry. "I guess I would, though grandpa classes all such things with
the pomps and vanities which I must renounce when I get to be good."
"And when will that be?" the doctor asked.
Again Maddy sighed, as she replied: "I cannot tell. I thought so much
about it while I was sick, that is, when I could think; but now I'm
better, it goes away from me some. I know it is wrong, but I cannot
help it. I've seen only a bit of pomp and vanity, but I must say that
I like what I have seen, and I wish to see more. It's very wicked, I
know," she kept on, as she met the queer expression of the doctor's
face;" and I know you think me so bad. You are good--a Christian, I
suppose?"
There was a strange light in the doctor's eye as he answered, half
sadly: "No, Maddy, I am not what you call a Christian, I have not
renounced the pomps and vanities yet."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," and Maddy's eyes expressed all the sorrow she
professed to feel. "You ought to be, now you've got so old."
The doctor colored crimson, and stopping his horse under the dim
shadow of a maple in a little hollow, he said: "I'm not so very old, Maddy; only twenty-five--only ten years older
than yourself; and Agnes' husband was more than twenty years her
senior."
The doctor did not know why he dragged that last in, when it had
nothing whatever to do with their conversation; but as the most
trivial thing often leads to great results, so far from the pang
caused by Maddy's thinking him so old, was born the first real
consciousness he had ever had that the little girl beside him was very
dear, and that the ten years difference between them might prove a
most impassable gulf. With this feeling, it was exceedingly painful
for him to hear Maddy's sudden exclamation: "Oh, oh! over twenty years--that's dreadful. She must be most glad
he's dead. I would not marry a man more than five years older than I
am."