Never in his life before had Dr. Holbrook been as much interested in any female who was not sick as he was in Madeline, and determining to make his call on Mrs. Briggs as brief as possible, he alighted at her gate, and knocked impatiently at her door. He found her pretty sick, while both her children needed a prescription, and so long a time was he detained that his heart misgave him on his homeward route, lest Maddy should be gone, and with her the chance to remedy the wrong he might have done her. Maddy was gone, and the wheel ruts of the square-boxed wagon were fresh before the door when he came back. Grandpa Markham had returned, and Madeline, who recognized old Sorrel’s step, had gathered her shawl around her and gone sadly out to meet him. One look at her face was sufficient. “You failed, Maddy?” the old man said, fixing about her feet the warm buffalo robe, for the night wind was blowing cool. “Yes, grandpa, I failed.” They were out of the village and more than a mile on their way home before Madeline found voice to say so much, and they were nearer home by half a mile ere the old man answered back: “And, Maddy, I failed too.” CHAPTER IV. GRANDPA MARKHAM. Mrs. Noah, the housekeeper at Aikenside, was slicing vegetable oysters for the nice little dish intended for her own supper, when the head of Sorrel came around the corner of the building, followed by the square-boxed wagon containing Grandpa Markham, who, bewildered by the beauty and spaciousness of the grounds, and wholly uncertain as to where he ought to stop, had driven over the smooth-graveled road around to the front kitchen door, Mrs. Noah’s spacious domain, as sacred as Betsey Trotwood’s patch of green. “In the name of wonder, what codger is that? and what is he doing here?” was Mrs. Noah’s exclamation, as she dropped the bit of salsify she was scraping, and hurrying to the door, called out: “I say, you, sir, what made you drive up here, when I’ve said over and over again, that I wouldn’t have wheels tearing up turf and gravel?” “I—I beg your pardon. I lost my way, I guess, there was so many turnin’s, I’m sorry, but a little rain will fetch it right,” grandpa said, glancing ruefully at the ruts in the gravel and the marks on the turf.