"And grandma said they were so nice, too--doing them up so carefully,"
she said, her lip beginning to quiver, and her eyes filling with
tears, as thoughts of home came rushing over her.
She could not force them back, and laying her head upon the top of the
despised hair trunk, she sobbed aloud. Guy Remington's private room
was in that hall, and as the doctor knew a book was to have been left
there for him, he took the liberty of getting it; passing Maddy's door
he heard the low sound of weeping, and looking in, saw her where she
sat or rather knelt upon the floor.
"Homesick so soon!" he said, advancing to her side, and then amid a
torrent of tears, the whole came out.
Maddy never could do as they did there, and everybody would laugh at
her so for an awkward thing; she never knew that folks ate dinner at
five instead of twelve--she should surely starve to death--she
couldn't carve--she could not eat mud-turtle soup, and she did not
know which dress to wear for dinner--would the doctor tell her? There
they were, and she pointed to the bed, only five, and she knew Jessie
thought it so mean.
Such was the substance of Maddy's passionate outpouring of her griefs
to the highly perplexed doctor, who, after quieting her somewhat,
ascertained that the greatest present trouble was the deciding what
dress was suitable to the occasion. The doctor had never made dress
his study, but as it happened he liked blue, and so suggested it, as
the one most likely to be becoming.
"That!" and Maddy looked confounded. "Why, grandma never let me wear
that, except on Sunday; that's my very best dress."
"Poor child; I'm not sure it was right for you to come here where the
life is so different from the quiet, unpretentious one you have led,"
the doctor thought, but he merely said: "It's my impression they wear
their best dresses here, all the time."
"But what will I do when that's worn out! Oh, dear, dear, I wish I had
not come!" and another impetuous fit of weeping ensued, in the midst
of which Jessie came back, greatly disturbed on Maddy's account, and
asking eagerly what was the matter.
Very adroitly the doctor managed to draw Jessie aside, while as well
as he was able he gave her a few hints with regard to her intercourse
with Maddy, and Jessie, who seemed intuitively to understand him, went
back to the weeping girl, soothing her much as a little mother would
have soothed her child. They would have such nice times, when Maddy
got used to their ways, which would not take long, and nobody would
laugh at her, she said, when Maddy expressed her fears on that point.
"You are too pretty even if you do make mistakes!" and then she went
into ecstasies over the blue muslin, which was becoming to Maddy, and
greatly enhanced her girlish beauty. The tear stains were all washed
away, Jessie using very freely her mother's _eau-de-cologne_, and
making Maddy's cheeks very red with rubbing, the nut-brown hair was
brushed until it shone like satin, a little narrow band of black
velvet ribbon was pinned about Maddy's snowy neck, and then she was
ready for that terrible ordeal, her first dinner at Aikenside. The
doctor was going to stay, and this helped to relieve her somewhat.