“Please call me Maddy. They do at home, and I shan’t be quite so—so—”
She could not say “homesick,” lest she should break out again into a fit of crying, but Mrs. Noah understood her, and remembering her own experience when first she went from home, she involuntarily stooped to kiss the pure, white forehead of the girl, who henceforth was sure of one friend at least at Aikenside.
The dinner was a success, so far as Maddy was concerned. Not a single mistake did she perpetrate, though her cheeks burned painfully as she felt the eyes of the polite waiters fixed so often upon her, and fancied they might be laughing at her. But they were not, and thanks to the kind-hearted Guy, they thought of her only with respect, as one who was their superior and must be treated accordingly. Knowing how different everything was at Aikenside from that to which she had been accustomed, Guy, with the thoughtfulness natural to him, had taken the precaution of speaking to each of the servants concerning Miss Clyde, Jessie’s teacher. As he could not be there himself when she first came it would devolve upon them, more or less, to make it pleasant for her by kind, civil attentions, he said, hinting at the dire displeasure sure to fall on any one who should be guilty of a misdemeanor in that direction. To Paul, the coachman, he had been particular in his charges, telling him who Maddy was, and arguing that from the insolence once given to the grandfather the offender was bound to be more polite to the grandchild. The carriage was to be at hers and Jessie’s command, Paul never refusing a reasonable request to drive the young ladies when and where they wished to go, while a pretty little black pony, recently broken to the saddle for Agnes, was to be at Miss Clyde’s service, if she chose to have it. As Guy’s slightest wish was always obeyed, Maddy’s chances for happiness were not small, notwithstanding that she felt so desolate and lonely when the doctor left her, and standing by Jessie she watched him with a swelling heart until he was lost to view in the deepening twilight.
Feeling that she must be homesick, Mrs. Noah suggested that she try the fine piano in the little music-room.
“Maybe you can’t play, but you can drum ‘Days of Absence,’ as most girls do,” and opening the lid she bade Maddy “thump as long as she liked.”