“Yes, yes, I know,” Agnes said at last, impatiently, weary of hearing of the cottage whose humble exterior and interior she knew so much better than Jessie herself.
But this was not to be divulged; for surely the haughty Agnes Remington, who, in Boston, aspired to lead in society into which, as the wife of Dr. Remington, she had been admitted, and who, in Aikenside, was looked upon with envy, could have nothing in common with the red cottage or its inmates. So when Jessie asked again if she could not visit Maddy on the morrow, she answered decidedly: “No, daughter, no. I do not wish you to associate with such people,” and when Jessie insisted on knowing why she must not associate with such people as Maddy Clyde, the answer was: “Because you are a Remington,” and as if this of itself were of an unanswerable objection, Agnes sent her child from her, refusing to talk longer on a subject so disagreeable to her and so suggestive of the past. It was all in vain that Jessie, and even Guy himself, tried to revoke the decision. Jessie should not be permitted to come in contact with that kind of people, she said, or incur the risk of catching that dreadful fever.
So day after day, while life and health were slowly throbbing through her veins, Maddy waited and longed for the little girl whose one visit to her sick room seemed so much like a dream. From her grandfather she had heard the good news of Guy Remington’s generosity, and that, quite as much as Dr. Holbrook’s medicines, helped to bring the color back to the pallid cheek and the brightness to her eyes.
She was asleep the first time the doctor came after the occasion of Jessie’s visit, and as sleep, he said, would do her more good than anything he might prescribe, he did not awaken her; but for a long time, as it seemed to Grandma Markham, who stood very little in awe of the Boston doctor, he watched her as she slept, now clasping the blue-veined wrist as he felt for the pulse, and now wiping from her forehead the drops of sweat, or pushing back her soft, damp hair. It would be three days before he could see her again, for a sick father in Cambridge needed his attention, and after numerous directions as to the administering of sundry powders and pills, he left her, feeling that the next three days would be long ones to him. Dr. Holbrook did not stop to analyze the nature of his interest in Maddy Clyde—an interest so different from any he had ever felt before for his patients; and even if he had sought to solve the riddle, he would have said that the knowing how he had wronged her was the sole cause of his thinking far more of her and of her case than of the thirty other patients on his list. Dr. Holbrook was a handsome man, a thorough scholar, and a most skillful physician; but ladies who expected from him those little polite attentions which the sex value so highly generally expected in vain, for he was no ladies’ man, and his language and manners were oftentimes abrupt, even when both were prompted by the utmost kindness of heart. In his organization, too, there was not a quick perception of what would be exactly appropriate, and so, when, at last, he was about starting to visit Maddy again, he puzzled his brains until they fairly ached with wondering what he could do to give her a pleasant surprise and show that he was not as formidable a personage as her past experience might lead her to think.