Here Mrs. Noah interrupted him with: “That’s it, the very _it_; you want nothing better than to have that girl sit close to you when she recites, as she does; and once when she was workin’ out some of them plusses and minuses, and things, her slate rested on your knee; it did, I saw it with my own eyes; and then, let me ask, when Jessie is drummin’ on the piano, why don’t you bend over her, and turn the leaves, and count the time, as you do when Maddy plays; and how does it happen that lately Jessie is one too many, when you hear Maddy’s lessons. She has no suspicions, but I know she ain’t sent off for nothin’; I know you’d rather be alone with Maddy Clyde than to have anybody present, isn’t it so?” Guy began to wince. There was much truth in what Mrs. Noah had said. He did devise various methods of getting rid of Jessie, when Maddy was in his library, but it had never looked to him in just the light it did when presented by Mrs. Noah, and he doggedly asked what Mrs. Noah would have him do. “First and foremost, then, I’d have you tell Maddy yourself that you are engaged to Lucy Atherstone; second, I’d have you write to Lucy all about it, and if you honestly can, tell her that you only care for Maddy as a friend; third, I’d have you send the girl—-” “Not away from Aikenside! I never will!” and Guy sprang to his feet. The mine had exploded, and for an instant the young man reeled, as he caught a glimpse of where he stood; still he would not believe it, or confess to himself how strong a place in his affections was held by the beautiful girl now no longer a child. It was almost a year since that April afternoon when he first met Maddy Clyde, and from a timid, bashful child, of fourteen and a half, she had grown to the rather tall, and rather self-possessed maiden of fifteen and a half, almost sixteen, as Mrs. Noah said, “almost a woman;” and as if to verify the latter fact, she herself appeared at that very moment, asking permission to come in and find a book, which had been mislaid, and which she needed in hearing Jessie’s lessons. “Certainly, come in,” Guy said, and folding his arms he leaned against the mantel, watching her as she hunted for the missing book.