Those were dark, wearisome days to Maddy, and the long, cold winter

was gone from the New England hills, and the early buds of spring were

coming up by the cottage door, the neighbors began to talk of the

change which had come over the young girl, once so full of life and

health, but now so languid and pale. Still Maddy was not unhappy, nor

was the discipline too severe, for by it she learned at last the great

object of life; learned to take her troubles and cares to One who

helped her bear them so cheerfully, that those who pitied her most

never dreamed how heavy was her burden, so patiently and sweetly she

bore it. Occasionally there came to her letters from the doctor, but

latterly they gave her less pleasure than pain, for as sure as she

read one of his kind, friendly messages of sympathy and remembrance,

the tempter whispered to her that though she did not love him as she

ought to love her husband, yet a life with him was far preferable to

the life she was living, and a receipt of his letters always gave her

a pang which lasted until Guy came down to see her, when it usually

disappeared. Agnes was now at Aikenside, and thus Maddy frequently had

Jessie at the cottage, but Agnes never came, and Maddy little guessed

how often the proud woman cried herself to sleep after listening to

Jessie's recital of all Maddy had to do for the crazy man, and how

patiently she did it. He had taken a fancy that Maddy must tell him

stories of Sarah, describing her as she was now, not as she used to be

when he knew her, but now. "What is she now? How does she look? What

does she wear? Tell me, tell me!" he would plead, until Maddy, forced

to tell him something, and having distinctly in her mind but one

fashionable woman such as she fancied Sarah might be, told him of

Agnes Remington, describing her as she was in her mature beauty, with

her heavy flowing curls, her brilliant color, her flashing diamonds

and costly laces, and Uncle Joseph, listening to her with parted lips

and hushed breath, would whisper softly, "Yes, that's Sarah, beautiful

Sarah; but tell me--does she ever think of me, or of that time in Hie

orchard when I wove the apple blossoms in her hair, where the diamonds

are now? She loved me then; she told me so. Does she know how sick,

and sorry, and foolish I am?--how the aching in my poor, simple brain

is all for her, and how you, Maddy, are doing for me what it is her

place to do? Had I a voice," and the crazy man now grew excited, as,

raising himself in bed, he gesticulated wildly, "had I a voice to

reach her, I'd cry shame on her, to let you do her work, let you-wear

your young life and fresh, bright beauty all away for me, whom she

ruined."




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