With the earliest dawn, however, she was up, and her grandmother heard
her repeating to herself much of what she dreaded Dr. Holbrook might
question her upon. Even when bending over the washtub, for there were
no servants at the red cottage, a book was arranged before her so that
she could study with her eyes, while her small, fat hands and dimpled
arms were busy in the suds. Before ten o'clock everything was done,
the clothes, white as the snowdrops in the garden beds, were swinging
on the line, the kitchen floor was scrubbed, the windows washed, the
best room swept, the vegetables cleaned for dinner, and then Maddy's
work was finished. "Grandma could do all the rest," she said, and
Madeline was free "to put her eyes out over them big books if she
liked."
Swiftly flew the hours until it was time to be getting ready, when
again the short hair was deplored, as before her looking-glass
Madeline brushed and arranged her shining, beautiful locks. Would Dr.
Holbrook think of her age? Suppose he should ask it. But no, he
wouldn't. If Mr. Green thought her old enough, surely it was not a
matter with which the doctor need trouble himself; and, somewhat at
ease on that point, Madeline donned her longest frock, and, standing
in a chair, tried to discover how much of her pantalets was visible.
"I could see splendidly in Mr. Remington's mirrors," she said to
herself, with a half sigh of regret that her lot had not been cast in
some such place as Aikenside, instead of there beneath the hill in
that wee bit of a cottage, whose rear slanted back until it almost
touched the ground. "After all, I guess I'm happier here," she
thought. "Everybody likes me, while if I were Mr. Guy's sister and
lived at Aikenside, I might be proud and wicked, and--"
She did not finish the sentence, but somehow the story of Dives and
Lazarus, read by her grandfather that morning, recurred to her mind,
and feeling how much rather she would rest in Abraham's bosom than
share the fate of him who once was clothed in purple and fine linen
she pinned on her little neat plaid shawl, and, tying the blue ribbons
of her coarse straw hat, glanced once more at the formidable cube
root, and then hurried down to where her grandfather and old Sorrel
wore waiting for her.
"I shall be so happy when I come back, because it will then be over,
just like having a tooth out, you know," she said to her grandmother,
who bent down for the good-by kiss without which Maddy never left her.
"Now, grandpa, drive on; I was to be there at three," and chirruping
herself to Sorrel, the impatient Madge went riding from the cottage
door, chatting cheerily until the village of Devonshire was reached;
then, with a farewell to her grandfather, who never dreamed that the
man whom he was seeking was so near, she tripped up the flagging walk,
and, as we have seen, soon stood in the presence of not only Dr.
Holbrook, but also of Guy Remington.