“Was he beside himself, or what?” this worthy asked. “She liked Maddy Clyde, to be sure, but it wasn’t for him to demean himself by turning her school master. Folks would talk awfully, and she couldn’t blame ’em; besides, what would Lucy say to his bein’ alone in a room with a girl as pretty as Maddy? It was a duty he owed her at any rate to tell her all about it, and if she said ’twas right, why, go it.” This was the drift of Mrs. Noah’s remarks, and as Guy depended much on her judgment, he decided to write to Lucy to see if she had the slightest objections to his teaching Maddy Clyde. Accordingly he wrote that very night, telling her frankly all he knew concerning Maddy Clyde, and narrating the circumstances under which he first had met her, being careful also to repeat what he knew would have weight with an English girl like Lucy, to wit, that though poor, Maddy’s father and grandfather Clyde had been gentlemen, the one a clergyman, the other a sea captain. Then he told of her desire for learning, and his plan to teach her himself, of what the doctor and Mrs. Noah said about it, and his final determination to consult her. Then he described Maddy herself, feeling a strange thrill as he told how pure, how innocent, how artless and beautiful she was, and asked if Lucy feared aught from his association with her. “If you do,” he wrote, “you have but to say so, and though I am committed, I will extricate myself in some way rather than wound you in the slightest degree.” It would be some time ere an answer to this letter could be received, and until such time Guy could not honorably hear Maddy’s lessons as he had agreed to do. But Maddy was not suspicious, and accepting his trivial excuse, waited patiently, while he, too, waited for the letter, wondering what it would contain. CHAPTER XII. A GENEROUS LETTER. At last the answer came, and it was Maddy who brought it to Guy. She had been home that day, and on her return had ridden by the office as Guy had requested her to do. She saw the letter bore a foreign postmark, also that it was in the delicate handwriting of some female, but the sight did not affect her in the least. Maddy’s heart was far too heavy that day to care for a trifle, and so placing the letter carefully in her basket she kept on to Aikenside.