At first Grandpa Markham hesitated. It might do Maddy a deal of hurt to go to Aikenside, he said; her humble home would look mean to her after all that finery, while the temptations to vanity and ambition would be greater there than at home; but Maddy put all his objections aside, and long before the doctor came she had written to Mrs. Agnes that she would go. The doctor could not understand why it was that in Maddy’s home he did not think as well of her going to Aikenside as he had done the evening previous. She looked so bright, so pure, so artless, sitting by her grandfather’s knee, that it seemed a pity to transplant her to another soil, while, hidden in his heart, was a fear of what might be the effect of daily intercourse with Guy. Still he said it was the best thing for her to do, and laughingly remarked that it was far better than teaching the district school; and then he asked if she would ride again that day, but to this Mrs. Markham objected. It was too soon, she said, Maddy had hardly recovered from yesterday’s fatigue—suggesting that as the doctor was desirous of doing good to his convalescent patients, he should take poor old deaf Mary Barnes, who complained that he staid so long with the child at “Gran’ther Markham’s” as to have but a moment to spare for her. Instantly the eyes of Mrs. Markham and the doctor met, the latter feeling very uncomfortable, while the former was confirmed in the suspicion raised by what Maddy told her the day before. It was the doctor who carried Maddy’s answer to Agnes, the doctor who made all the succeeding arrangements, deciding that Maddy would not be wholly strong until the very day fixed upon by Agnes for her departure for Saratoga. For this Guy was sorry. It would have been an easy matter for him to have ridden down to the cottage and seen the girl in whom he was beginning to feel so much interested that in his last letter to Lucy he had mentioned her as about to become his sister’s governess; but he did not care to see her there. It seemed to him that the surroundings of the slanting-roofed house did not belong to her, and he would rather meet her in his own more luxurious home. But the doctor’s word was law, and so, on the first day of August he followed Agnes and her three huge traveling trunks to the carriage, and was driven from the house to which Maddy was coming that afternoon. CHAPTER X. AT AIKENSIDE. It was a long, tiresome ride for grandpa, from Honedale to Aikenside, and he accepted thankfully the doctor’s offer to take Maddy there himself. With this arrangement Maddy was well pleased, as it would thus afford her the opportunity she had so much desired, of talking with the doctor about his bill, and asking him to wait until she had earned enough to pay it.