“Yes—I don’t know. I guess it would not be so lonely. Oh, it’s terrible to have grandmother dead!” was Maddy’s response; after which Guy would have staid if a whole regiment of Mrs. Noahs had confronted him instead of one. Maddy wished it; that was reason enough for him; and giving a few directions to John, he staid, thereby disconcerting the neighboring women who came in to perform the last offices for the dead, and who wished the young man from Aikenside was anywhere but there, criticising all their movements, as they vainly fancied he was. But Guy thought only of Maddy, watching her so carefully that more than one meaning glance was exchanged between the women, who, even over the inanimate form of the dead, spoke together of what might possibly occur, and wondering what would be the effect on Grandpa Markham and Uncle Joseph. Who would take care of them? And then, in case Maddy should feel it her duty to stay there, as they half-hoped she would, they fell to pitying the young girl, who seemed now so wholly unfitted for the burden. To Maddy there came no definite thought of the future during the two days that white, rigid form lay in the cottage; but when, at last, the deep grave made for Grandma Markham was occupied, and the lounge in the little front room was empty—when the Aikenside carriage, which had been sent down for the mourners, had driven away, taking both Guy and Mrs. Noah—when the neighbors, too, had gone, leaving only herself and the little girl who had been hired as help sitting by the fire, with the grandfather and the imbecile Uncle Joseph—then it was that she first began to feel the pressure of the burden—began to ask herself if she could live thus always, or at least for as long as either of the two helpless men were spared. Maddy was young, and the world as she had seen it was very bright and fair, brighter far than a life of laborious toil, and for a while the idea that the latter alternative must be accepted made her dizzy and faint. As if divining her thoughts, the poor old grandfather, in his prayers that night, asked in trembling tones, which showed how much he felt what he was saying, that God would guide his darling in all she did, and give her wisdom to make the proper decision; that if it were best she might be happy there with them, but if not, “Oh, Father, Father!” he sobbed, “help me and Joseph to bear it.” He could pray no more aloud, and the gray head remained bowed down upon his chair, while Uncle Joseph, in his crazy way, took up the theme, begging like a very child that Maddy might be inclined to stay—that no young man with curling hair, a diamond cross, and smell of musk, might be permitted to come near her with enticing looks, but that she might stay as she was and die an old maid forever! This was the substance of Uncle Joseph’s prayer, which set the little hired girl to tittering, and would have wrung a smile from Maddy herself had she not felt all the strange petition implied.