It was Guy who received her, Guy who pointed to a chair, Guy who
seemed perfectly at home, and, naturally enough, she took him for Dr.
Holbrook, wondering who the other black-haired man could be, and if he
meant to stay in there all the while. It would be very dreadful if he
did, and in her agitation and excitement the cube root was in danger
of being altogether forgotten. Half guessing the cause of her
uneasiness, and feeling more averse than ever to taking part in the
matter, the doctor, after a hasty survey of her person, withdrew into
the background, and sat where he could not be seen. This brought the
short dress into full view, together with the dainty little foot,
nervously beating the floor.
"She's very young," he thought; "too young, by far," and Maddy's
chances of success were beginning to decline even before a word had
been spoken.
How terribly still it was for the time, during which telegraphic
communications were silently passing between Guy and the doctor, the
latter shaking his dead decidedly, while the former insisted that he
should do his duty. Madeline could almost hear the beatings of her
heart, and only by counting and recounting the poplar trees growing
across the street could she keep back the tears. What was he waiting
for, she wondered, and, at last, summoning all her courage, she lifted
her great brown eyes to Guy, and said, pleadingly: "Would you be so kind, sir, as to begin?"
"Yes, certainly," and electrified by that young, bird-like voice, the
sweetest save one he had ever heard, Guy knocked down from the pile of
books the only one at all appropriate to the occasion, the others
being as far beyond what was taught in the district schools as his
classical education was beyond Madeline's common one.
Remembering that the teacher of whom he had once been for a week a
pupil, in the town of Framingham, had commenced operations by
sharpening a lead pencil, so he now sharpened a similar one,
determining as far as he could to follow that teacher's example. Maddy
counted every fragment as it fell upon the floor, wishing so much that
he would commence, and fancying that it would not be half so bad to
have him approach her with some one of those terrible dental
instruments lying before her, as it was to sit and wait as she was
waiting. Had Guy Remington reflected a little, he would never have
consented to do the doctor's work; but, unaccustomed to country
usages, especially those pertaining to schools and teachers, he did
not consider that it mattered which examined that young girl, himself
or Dr. Holbrook. Viewing it somewhat in the light of a joke, he rather
enjoyed it; and as the Framingham teacher had first asked her pupils
their names and ages, so he, when the pencil was sharpened
sufficiently, startled Madeline by asking her name.