As Guy sat nearest the door, it was he who held it ajar while Madeline
came in, her soft brown eyes glistening with something like a tear,
and her cheeks burning with excitement as she took the chair indicated
by Guy Remington, who unconsciously found himself master of
ceremonies.

Poor little Madeline!




CHAPTER II

MADELINE CLYDE.


Madge her schoolmates called her, because the name suited her, they
said; but Maddy they called her at home, and there was a world of
unutterable tenderness in the voices of the old couple, her
grandparents, when they said that name, while their dim eyes lighted
up with pride and joy when they rested upon the young girl who
answered to the name of Maddy. Their only daughter's only child, she
had lived with them since her mother's death, for her father was a sea
captain, who never returned from his last voyage to China, made two
months before she was born. Very lonely and desolate would the home of
Grandfather Markham have been without the presence of Madeline, but
with her there, the old red farmhouse seemed to the aged couple like a
paradise.