Meantime for Maddy Dr. Holbrook had prescribed perfect quiet, bidding them darken the windows from which the shade had been removed, and ordering all save the grandmother to leave the room and let the patient sleep, if possible. Even Jessie was not permitted to stay, though Maddy clung to her as to a dear friend. In a few whispered words Jessie had told her name, saying she came from Aikenside, and that her brother Guy was there too, in the carriage. “He heard how sick you were at Devonshire, this morning, and drove right home for me to come to see you. I told him of you that day in the office, and that’s why he brought me, I guess. You’ll like _Guy_, I know—he’s so good.” Sick and weary as she was, and unable as yet to comprehend the entire meaning of all she heard, Maddy was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in knowing that Guy Remington from Aikenside was interested in her, and had brought his sister to see her. Winding her arms around Jessie’s neck, she kissed the soft, warm cheek, and said, “You’ll come again, I hope.” “Yes, every day, if mamma will let me. I don’t mind it a bit, if you are poor.” “Come, come,” and Dr. Holbrook, who had all the while been standing near, took Jessie by the arm and led her out to where Guy was waiting for her. CHAPTER VI. CONVALESCENCE. Had it not been for the presence of Dr. Holbrook, who, accepting Guy’s invitation to tea, rode back with him to Aikenside, Mrs. Agnes would have flown into a passion when told that Jessie had been exposed to fever, of which she had a great dread. “There’s no telling what one will catch among the very poor,” she said to Dr. Holbrook, as she clasped and unclasped the heavy gold bracelets on her white, round arm. “I’ll be answerable for any disease Jessie caught at Mr. Markham’s,” the doctor replied: “At Mr. Who’s? What did you call him?” Agnes asked quickly, the bright color on her cheek fading as the doctor replied: “Markham—an old man who lives in Honedale. You never knew him, of course.” “Certainly not—how could I?” Agnes replied, as she took her seat at the tea-table. But her white fingers trembled as she handled the china and silver, and for once she was glad when the doctor took his leave, and she was alone with Jessie. “What was the girl’s name?” she asked; “the one you went to see?” “Maddy, mother—Madeline Clyde. She’s so pretty. I’m going to see her again. May I?” Agnes did not reply directly, but continued to question the child with regard to the cottage which Jessie thought so funny, slanting way back, she said, so that the roof on one side almost touched the ground. The window panes, too, were so very tiny, and the room where Maddy lay sick was small and low. “Yes, yes, I know,” Agnes said at last, impatiently, for she was tired of hearing of the cottage whose humble exterior and interior she knew so much better than Jessie herself.