“Never, most likely. The only thing she’s said since the shock was to call your name. She’s missed you despatly this winter back; more than ever before, I think. So have we all, but we would not send for you—Mr. Guy said you were learning so fast.” “Oh, grandpa, why didn’t you? I would have come so willingly,” and for an instant Maddy’s eyes flashed reproachfully upon the recreant Guy, standing aloof from the little group gathered about the bed, his arms folded together, and a moody look upon his face. He was thinking of what had not yet entered Maddy’s mind, thinking of _the future_—Maddy’s future, when the aged form upon the bed should be gone, and the two comparatively helpless men be left alone. “But it shall not be. The sacrifice is far too great. I can prevent it, and I will,” he muttered to himself, as he turned to watch the gray dawn breaking in the east. Guy was a puzzle to himself. He would not admit that during the past year his liking for Maddy Clyde had grown to be something stronger than mere friendship, nor yet that his feelings toward Lucy had under gone a change, prompting him not to go to her when she was sick, and not to be as sorry as he ought that the marriage was again deferred. Lucy had no suspicion of the change, and her child-like trust in him was the anchor which held him still true to her in intentions at least, if not in reality. He knew from her letters how much she had learned to like Maddy Clyde, and so, he argued, there was no harm in his liking her, too. She was a splendid girl, and it seemed a pity that her lot should have been so humbly cast. This was usually the drift of his thoughts in connection with her; and now, as he stood there in that cottage, Maddy’s home, they recurred to him with tenfold intensity, for he foresaw that a struggle was before him if he rescued Maddy as he meant to do from her approaching fate. No such thoughts, however, intruded themselves on Maddy’s mind. She did not look away from the present, except it were at the past, in which she feared she had erred by leaving her grandmother too much alone. But to her passionate appeals for forgiveness, if she ever had neglected the dying one, there came back only loving looks and mute caresses, the aged hand smoothing lovingly the bowed head, or pressing fondly the girlish cheeks.