"And you will do so?" Mrs. Noah said coaxingly.
"Of course I will, and write to Lucy, too, telling her how you talked,
and how I care no more for Maddy than I do for Jessie."
"And will that be true?" Mrs. Noah asked.
Guy could not look her fully in the face then, so he kicked the grate
until the concussion sent the red-hot coals out upon the carpet as he
replied: "True? Yes, every word of it."
Mrs. Noah noted all this, and thinking within herself: "I orto have took him in hand long ago," she came up to him and said
kindly, soothingly: "We shall all miss Maddy; I as much as any one,
but I do think it best for her to go to school; and so, after tea,
I'll manage to keep Jessie with me, and send Maddy to you, while you
tell her about Lucy and the plan."
Guy nodded a little jerking kind of a nod, in token of his assent, and
then with that perversity which prompts women particularly to press a
subject after enough has been said upon it, Mrs. Noah, as she turned
to leave the room, gave vent to the following: "You know, Guy, as well as I, that pretty and smart as she is, Maddy
is really beneath you, and no kind of a match, even if you wan't as
good as married, which you be;" and the good lady left the room in
time to escape seeing the sparks fly up the chimney, as Guy now made a
most vigorous use of the poker, and so did not finish the scorching
process commenced on the end of his boot.
Mrs. Noah's last remark awakened in Guy a Singular train of thought.
Yes, Maddy was his inferior as the world saw matters, and settling
himself in the chair he tried to fancy what that same world would say
if he should make Maddy his wife. Of course he had no such intention,
he was just imagining something which never could possibly happen,
because in the first place he wouldn't marry Maddy Clyde if he could,
and he couldn't if he would! Still, it was not an unpleasant
occupation fancying what folks, and especially Agnes, would say if he
did, and so he sat dreaming about it until the bell rang for supper,
when with a nervous start he woke from the reverie, and wishing the
whole was over, started for the supper.