“You are not homely. I think you quite as pretty as Lucy; I do, really,” he continued, as her eyes kindled at the compliment. “I am going to write to her to-night, and shall tell her more about you. I want you to like each other very much when she comes, so that you may live with us. Aikenside would not be Aikenside without you, Maddy.” In all his wooings of Lucy Atherstone, Guy’s voice had never been tenderer in its tone than when he said this to Maddy, whose lip quivered again, and who involuntarily laid her head upon the arm of his chair as she cried a second time, not noisily, but quietly, softly, as if this crying did her good. For several minutes they sat there thus, the nature of their thoughts known only to each other, for neither spoke, until Maddy, half ashamed of her emotions, lifted up her head, and said: “I do not know what made me cry, only I have been so happy here that I guess I thought it might go on forever. I am afraid Miss Atherstone will not fancy me, and I know I shall not feel as free here, after she comes, as I do now. Then your being so good in sending me to school, helped me to cry more, and so I was very foolish. Don’t tell Miss Atherstone that I cried. Tell her, though, how beautiful she is, and how glad I am that she loves you, and is going to be your wife.” Maddy’s voice was very steady in its tone. She evidently meant what she said, and it made Guy rather uncomfortable, and as Maddy was in some way associated with his discomfort, he did not oppose her when she arose to leave him. Had Maddy been more a woman, and less a child, he would have seen that it was well for her to know of Lucy Atherstone before her feelings for Guy Remington had assumed a definite form. As it was, she never dreamed how near she was to loving Aikenside’s young master; and while talking with Jessie of the grand times they should have at school, she marveled at that little spot of pain which was burning at her heart, or why she should wish that Guy would not speak of her in his letter to Lucy Atherstone.