"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

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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.