Aikenside

"And grandma said they were so nice, too--doing them up so carefully,"

she said, her lip beginning to quiver, and her eyes filling with

tears, as thoughts of home came rushing over her.

She could not force them back, and laying her head upon the top of the

despised hair trunk, she sobbed aloud. Guy Remington's private room

was in that hall, and as the doctor knew a book was to have been left

there for him, he took the liberty of getting it; passing Maddy's door

he heard the low sound of weeping, and looking in, saw her where she

sat or rather knelt upon the floor.

"Homesick so soon!" he said, advancing to her side, and then amid a

torrent of tears, the whole came out.

Maddy never could do as they did there, and everybody would laugh at

her so for an awkward thing; she never knew that folks ate dinner at

five instead of twelve--she should surely starve to death--she

couldn't carve--she could not eat mud-turtle soup, and she did not

know which dress to wear for dinner--would the doctor tell her? There

they were, and she pointed to the bed, only five, and she knew Jessie

thought it so mean.

Such was the substance of Maddy's passionate outpouring of her griefs

to the highly perplexed doctor, who, after quieting her somewhat,

ascertained that the greatest present trouble was the deciding what

dress was suitable to the occasion. The doctor had never made dress

his study, but as it happened he liked blue, and so suggested it, as

the one most likely to be becoming.

"That!" and Maddy looked confounded. "Why, grandma never let me wear

that, except on Sunday; that's my very best dress."

"Poor child; I'm not sure it was right for you to come here where the

life is so different from the quiet, unpretentious one you have led,"

the doctor thought, but he merely said: "It's my impression they wear

their best dresses here, all the time."

"But what will I do when that's worn out! Oh, dear, dear, I wish I had

not come!" and another impetuous fit of weeping ensued, in the midst

of which Jessie came back, greatly disturbed on Maddy's account, and

asking eagerly what was the matter.

Very adroitly the doctor managed to draw Jessie aside, while as well

as he was able he gave her a few hints with regard to her intercourse

with Maddy, and Jessie, who seemed intuitively to understand him, went

back to the weeping girl, soothing her much as a little mother would

have soothed her child. They would have such nice times, when Maddy

got used to their ways, which would not take long, and nobody would

laugh at her, she said, when Maddy expressed her fears on that point.

"You are too pretty even if you do make mistakes!" and then she went

into ecstasies over the blue muslin, which was becoming to Maddy, and

greatly enhanced her girlish beauty. The tear stains were all washed

away, Jessie using very freely her mother's _eau-de-cologne_, and

making Maddy's cheeks very red with rubbing, the nut-brown hair was

brushed until it shone like satin, a little narrow band of black

velvet ribbon was pinned about Maddy's snowy neck, and then she was

ready for that terrible ordeal, her first dinner at Aikenside. The

doctor was going to stay, and this helped to relieve her somewhat.