A Generous Letter

At last the answer came, and it was Maddy who brought it to Guy. She
had been home that day, and on her return had ridden by the office as
Guy had requested her to do. She saw the letter bore a foreign
postmark, also that it was in the delicate handwriting of some female,
but the sight did not affect her in the least. Maddy's heart was far
too heavy that day to care for a trifle, and so placing the letter
carefully in her basket she kept on to Aikenside.

The letter was decidedly Lucy-ish in all that pertained to her
"dearest darling," her "precious Guy," but when she came to Maddy
Clyde, her true, womanly nature spoke; and Guy, while reading it, felt
how good she was. Of course he might teach Maddy Clyde all he wished
to teach her, and it made Lucy love him better to know that he was
willing to do such things. She wished she was there to help him; they
would open a school for all the poor, but she did not know when mamma
would let her come. That pain in her side was not any better, and her
cough had come earlier this season than last. The physician had
advised a winter in Naples, and they were going before very long. It
would be pleasant there, no doubt, only she should be farther away
from her boy Guy, but she would think of him, oh, so often, teaching
that dear little Maddy Clyde, and she would pray for him, too, just as
she always did. Then followed a few more lines sacred to the lover's
eye, lines which told how pure was the love which sweet Lucy
Atherstone bore for Guy Remington, who, as he read, felt his heart
beat with a throb of pain, for Lucy spoke to him now for the first
time of what might possibly be.