Guy began to exclaim against any one's forgetting her, and also to
express his pleasure at finding her so glad to see him, when Maddy
interrupted him with, "Oh, it's not that; I've something to show you--
something which will make you very happy. I had a letter from Lucy
last night. When she is twenty-five she will be her own mistress, you
know, and she means to be married in spite of her mother--she says--let
me see--" and drawing from her bosom Lucy's letter, Maddy read,
"'I do not intend to fail in filial obedience, but I have tired dear
Guy's patience long enough, and as soon as I can I shall marry him.'
Isn't it nice?" and returning the letter to its hiding place, Maddy
scooped up in her hand and ate a quantity of the snow beside the path.
"Yes, it was very nice," Guy admitted, but there was a shadow on his
brow as he followed Maddy into the cottage, where the lunatic, who had
been watching them from the window, shook his head doubtfully and
said, "Too young, too young for you, young man. You can't have our
Sunshine if you want her."
"Hush, Uncle Joseph," Maddy whispered, softly, taking his arm and
laying it around her neck. "Mr. Remington don't want me. He is engaged
to a beautiful English girl across the sea."
Low as Maddy's words were, Guy heard them, as well as the crazy man's
reply, "Engagements have been broken."
That was the first time the possibility had ever entered Guy's brain
that his engagement might be broken, provided he wished it, which he
did not, he said to himself positively. Lucy loved him, he loved Lucy,
and that was enough, so in a kind of abstracted manner arising from
the fact that he was calculating how long it would be before Lucy was
twenty-five, he began to talk with Maddy, asking how she had spent her
time, and so forth. This reminded Maddy of the doctor, who, she said,
had not been to see her at all.
"He was coming this morning," Guy rejoined, "but I persuaded him to
defer his call until you were at Aikenside. I have come to take you
back with me, as we are to have a party day after to-morrow evening,
and I wish you to be present."
A party, a big party, such as Maddy had never in her life attended!
How her eyes sparkled from mere anticipation as she looked appealingly
to her grandfather, who, though classing parties with the pomps and
vanities from which he would shield his child, still remembered that
he once was young, that fifty years ago he, too, like Maddy, wanted
"to see the folly of it," and not take the mere word of older people
that in every festive scene there was a pitfall, strewn over so
thickly with roses that it was ofttimes hard to tell just where its
boundary line commenced. Besides that, grandpa had faith in Guy, and
so his consent was granted, and Maddy was soon on her way to
Aikenside, which presented a gayer, busier appearance than she had
ever known before. Jessie was wild with delight, dragging forth at
once the pink dress which she was to wear, and whispering to Maddy
that Guy had bought a dark blue silk for her, and that Sarah Jones was
at that moment fashioning it after a dress left there by Maddy the
previous summer.