Once alone, the torrent burst forth, and burying her face in the soft grass, she wept bitterly, never hearing the step coming near, and not at first heeding the voice which asked what was the matter. Guy Remington, too, had come out into the garden, and accidentally wandering that way, stumbled upon the little figure crying in the grass. He knew it was Maddy, and greatly surprised to find her thus, asked what was the matter. Then, as she did not hear him, he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder, compelling her to look up. In all her imaginings of Guy, she had never associated him with the man who had so puzzled and confused her, and now she did not for a time suspect the truth. She only thought the stranger a guest at Aikenside; some one come with Guy; and her degradation seemed greater than before. She was not surprised when he called her by name; of course he remembered her, just as she did him; but she did wonder a little what Mrs. Agnes would say, could she know how kindly he spoke to her as he lifted her from the grass and led her to a rustic seat at no great distance from them. “Now, tell me why you are crying so?” he said, brushing from her apron the spot of dirt which had settled upon it. “Are you homesick?” he continued, and then Maddy burst out crying harder than before. She forgot that he was a stranger, forgot everything except that he sympathized with her. “Oh, sir,” she sobbed, “I was _so_ happy here till they came home, Mrs. Remington and Mr. Guy. I never thought it was a disgrace to be a governess; never heard it was so considered, or that I was not good enough to sit with them and eat with them till she told me so. Oh, dear, dear!” and choked with tears, Maddy stopped a moment to take breath. She did not look up at the young man beside her, and it was well she did not, for the dark expression of his face would have frightened her. Half guessing the truth, and impatient to hear more, he said to her: “Go on!” so sternly, that she started, and replied: “I know you are angry with me and I ought not to have told you.” “I am not angry—not at you, at least—go on,” was Guy’s reply, and Maddy continued: “She told me that now they had come home it would be different, that only when invited must I come to the parlor, or anywhere, but must stay in the servants’ part, and eat with Mrs. Noah and Sarah. I’d just as soon do that. I am no better than they, only, only—the way she told me made me feel so mean, as if I was not anybody, when I am,” and here Maddy’s pride began to rise. “I’m just as good as she, if grandpa is poor, and I won’t stay here to be treated like a _nigger_ by her and Mr. Guy. I liked him so much too, because he was kind to grandpa and to me when I was sick. Yes, I did like him so much.” “And how is it now?” Guy asked, wondering who in the world she thought he was. “How is it now?”