CHAPTER I.THE EXAMINING COMMITTEE.

MADELINE.

Twenty-five years ago the people of Devonshire, a little town among the New England hills, had the reputation of being rather quarrelsome. Sometimes about meek, gentle Mrs. Tiverton, the minister’s wife, whose manner of housekeeping, or style of dress, did not exactly suit them; sometimes about the minister himself, who vainly imagined that if he preached three sermons a week, attended the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, the Thursday evening sewing society, visited all the sick, and gave to every beggar that called at his door, besides superintending the Sunday-school, he was earning his salary of six hundred per year.

Sometimes, and that not rarely, the quarrel crept into the choir, and then for two or three Sundays it was all in vain that Mr. Tiverton read the psalm and hymn, and cast troubled glances toward the vacant seats of his refractory singers. There was no one to respond, except poor Mr. Hodges, who usually selected something in a minor key, and pitched it so high that few could follow him; while Mrs. Captain Simpson—whose daughter was the organist—rolled her eyes at her next neighbor, or fanned herself furiously in token of her disgust.

Latterly, however, there had arisen a new cause for quarrel, before which everything else sank into insignificance. Now, though the village of Devonshire could boast but one public school-house, said house being divided into two departments, the upper and lower divisions, there were in the town several district schools; and for the last few years a committee of three had been annually appointed to examine and decide upon the merits of the various candidates for teaching, giving to each, if the decision were favorable, a slip of paper certifying his or her qualification to teach a common school. It was strange that over such an office so fierce a feud should have arisen; but when Mr. Tiverton, SquireLamb, and Lawyer Whittemore, in the full conviction that they were doing right, refused a certificate of scholarship to a niece of Mrs. Judge Tisdale, and awarded it to one whose earnings in a factory had procured for her a thorough English education, the villagers were roused as they had never been before—the aristocracy abusing, and the democracy upholding the dismayed trio, who at last quietly resigned their office, and Devonshire was without a school committee.

In this emergency something must be done, and as the two belligerent parties could only unite on a stranger, it seemed a matter of special providence that only two months before the quarrel began, young Dr. Holbrook, a native of Boston, had rented the pleasant little office on the village common, formerly occupied by old Dr. Carey, whose days of practice were over. Besides being handsome, and skillful, and quite as familiar with the poor as the rich, the young doctor was descended from the aristocratic line of Boston Holbrooks, facts which tended to make him a favorite with both classes; and, greatly to his surprise, he found himself unanimously elected to the responsible office of sole Inspector of Common Schools in Devonshire. It wasin vain that he remonstrated, saying he knew nothing whatever of the qualifications requisite for a teacher; that he could not talk togirlsunless they happened to be sick; that he should make a miserable failure, and be turned out of office in less than a month. The people would not listen. Somebody must examine the teachers, and that somebody might as well be Dr. Holbrook as any one.

“Only be strict with ’em and draw the reins tight; find out to your satisfaction whether a gal knows her P’s and Q’s before you give her a stifficut: we’ve had enough of your ignoramuses,” said Colonel Lewis, the democratic potentate to whom Dr. Holbrook was expressing his fears that he should not give satisfaction. Then, as a bright idea suggested itself to the old gentleman, he added: “I tell you what, justcutone or two at first; that’ll give you a name for being particular, which is just the thing.”

Accordingly, with no definite idea as to what was expected of him, except that he was to find out “whether a gal knew her P’s and Q’s,” and was also to “cut one or two of the first candidates,” Dr. Holbrook accepted the situation, and then waited rather nervously his initiation. He was never at hisease in the society of ladies, unless they stood in need of his professional services, when he lost sight ofthemat once, and thought only of their disease. His patient once well, however, he became nervously shy and embarrassed, retreating as soon as possible from her presence to the shelter of his friendly office, where, with his boots upon the table, and his head thrown back in a most comfortable position, he sat one April morning, in happy oblivion of the bevy of girls who were ere long to invade his sanctum.

“Something for you, sir. The lady will wait for an answer,” said his office boy, passing to his master a little note, and nodding toward the street.

Following the direction indicated, the doctor saw near his door an old-fashioned one-horse wagon, such as is still occasionally seen in New England among the farmers who till the barren soil and rarely indulge in anything new. On this occasion it was a square-boxed dark-green wagon, drawn by a sorrel horse, sometimes called by the genuine Yankee “yellow,” and driven by a white-haired man, whose silvery locks, falling around his wrinkled face, gave him a pleasing, patriarchal appearance, which interested the doctor far more than did the flutter of the blue ribbonbeside him, even though the bonnet that ribbon tied shaded the face of a young girl.

The note was from her, and, tearing it open, the doctor read, in a pretty, girlish handwriting:

“Dr. Holbrook.”

Here it was plainly visible that a “D” had been written as if she would have said “Dear.” Then, evidently changing her mind, she had with her finger blotted out the “D,” and made it into an oddly-shaped “S,” so that it read:

“Dr. Holbrook—Sir: Will you be at leisure to examine me on Monday afternoon, at three o’clock?

“Madeline A. Clyde.

“P. S.—For particular reasons I hope you can attend to me as early as Monday.

M. A. C.”

Dr. Holbrook knew very little of girls and their peculiarities, but he thought this note, with its P. S., decidedly girlish. Still he made no comment, either verbal or mental, so flurried was he with the thought that the evil he so much dreaded had come upon him at last. Had it been left to his choice, he would far rather have extracted every one of Madeline Clyde’s teeth, than have set himself up beforeher as some horrid ogre, asking what she knew and what she did not know. But the choice was not his, and, turning at last to the boy, he said shortly, “Tell her to come.”

Most men would have sought for a glimpse of the face under the bonnet tied with blue, but Dr. Holbrook did not care a picayune whether it were ugly or fair, though itdidstrike him that the voice was singularly sweet, which, after the boy had delivered the message, said to the old man, “Oh, I am so glad; now, grandpa, we’ll go home. I know you must be tired.”

Very slowly Sorrel trotted down the street, the blue ribbons fluttering in the wind, and one little ungloved hand carefully adjusting about the old man’s shoulders the ancient camlet cloak which had done duty for many a year, and was needed on this chill April day. The doctor saw all this, and the impression left upon his mind was, that Candidate No. 1 was probably a nice kind of a girl, and very good to her grandfather. But what should he ask her, and how demean himself towards her, and would it be well to “cut her,” as Colonel Lewis had advised him to do to one or two of the first? Monday afternoon was frightfully near, he thought, as this was only Saturday; and then, feeling that he must be prepared, he brought outfrom the trunk, where, since his arrival in Devonshire, they had been quietly lying, books enough to have frightened an elder person than poor little Madeline Clyde, riding slowly home, and wishing so much that she’d had a glimpse of Dr. Holbrook, so as to know what he was like, and hoping he would give her a chance to repeat some of the many pages of Geography and History which she knew by heart. How she would have trembled could she have seen the formidable volumes heaped upon the doctor’s table and waiting for her. There were French and Latin grammars, Hamilton’s Metaphysics, Olmstead’s Philosophy, Day’s Algebra, Butler’s Analogy, and many other books, into which poor Madeline had never so much as looked. Arranging them in a row, and half wishing himself back again in the days when he had studied them, the doctor went out to visit his patients, of which there were so many that Madeline Clyde entirely escaped his mind, nor did she trouble him again until the dreaded Monday came, and the hands of his watch pointed to two.

“One hour more,” he said to himself, just as the roll of wheels and a cloud of dust announced the arrival of some one.

“Can it be Sorrel and the square wagon?” Dr.Holbrook thought. But far different from Grandfather Clyde’s turnout was the stylish carriage and the spirited bays which the colored coachman stopped in front of the white cottage in the same yard with the office, the house where Dr. Holbrook boarded, and where, if he married while in Devonshire, he would most likely bring his wife.

“Guy Remington, the very chap of all others whom I’d rather see, and, as I live, there’s Agnes with Jessie. Who knewshewas in these parts?” was the doctor’s mental exclamation, as, running his fingers through his hair and making a feint of pulling up the corners of his rather limp collar, he hurried out to the carriage, from which a dashing-looking lady of thirty, or thereabouts, was alighting.

“Why, Agnes—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Remington—when did you come?” he asked, offering his hand to the lady, who, coquettishly shaking back from her pretty, dollish face a profusion of light brown curls, gave him the tips of her lavender kids, while she told him she had come to Aikenside the Saturday before; and hearing from Guy that the lady with whom he boarded was an old friend of hers, she had driven over to call, and brought Jessie with her. “Here, Jessie, speak to the doctor. He was poor dear papa’sfriend,” and something which was intended as a sigh of regret for “poor, dear papa,” escaped Agnes Remington’s lips as she pushed a little curly-haired girl toward Dr. Holbrook.

Mrs. Conner, the lady of the house, had seen them by this time, and came running down the walk to meet her distinguished visitor, wondering a little to what she was indebted for this call from one who, since her marriage with the aristocratic Dr. Remington, had somewhat ignored her former acquaintances. Agnes was delighted to see her, and as Guy declined entering the cottage just then, the two friends disappeared within the door, while the doctor and Guy repaired to the office, the latter sitting down in the chair intended for Madeline Clyde. This reminded the doctor of his perplexity, and also brought the comforting thought that Guy, who had never failed him yet, could surely offer some suggestions. But he would not speak of it just now, he had other matters to talk about; and so, jamming his pen-knife into a pine table covered with similar jams, he said, “Agnes, it seems, has come to Aikenside, notwithstanding she declared she never would, when she found that the whole of the Remington property belonged to your mother, and not your father.”

“Oh, yes. She recovered from her pique as soon as I settled a handsome little income on Jessie, and, in fact, on her too, until she is foolish enough to marry again, when it will cease, of course, as I do not feel it my duty to support any man’s wife, unless it be my own,” was Guy Remington’s reply; whereupon the pen-knife went again into the table, and this time with so much force that the point was broken off; but the doctor did not mind it, and with the jagged end continued to make jagged marks, while he said: “She’ll hardly marry again, though she may. She’s young—not over twenty-six—”

“Thirty, if the family Bible does not lie,” said Guy; “but she’d never forgive me if she knew I told you that. So let it pass that she’s twenty-eight. She certainly is not more than two years your senior, a mere nothing, if you wish to make her Mrs. Holbrook;” and Guy’s dark eyes scanned curiously the doctor’s face, as if seeking there for the secret of his proud young step-mother’s anxiety to visit plain Mrs. Conner the moment she heard that Dr. Holbrook was her boarder. But the doctor only laughed merrily at the idea of his being father to Guy, who was his college chum and long-tried friend.

Agnes Remington, who was reclining languidly inMrs. Conner’s easy-chair, and overwhelming her former friend with descriptions of the gay parties she had attended in Boston, and the fine sights she saw in Europe, whither her gray-haired husband had taken her for a wedding tour—would not have felt particularly flattered, could she have seen that smile, or heard how easily, from talking of her, Dr. Holbrook turned to Madeline Clyde, whom he expected every moment. There was a merry laugh on Guy’s part, as he listened to the doctor’s story; and when it was finished, he said: “Why, I see nothing so very distasteful in examining a pretty girl, and puzzling her, to see her blush. I half wish I were in your place. I should enjoy the novelty of the thing.”

“Oh, take it, then; take my place, Guy,” the doctor exclaimed, eagerly. “She does not know me from Adam. She never saw me in her life. Here are books, all you will need. You went to a district school a whole week that summer when you were staying in the country, with your grandmother. You surely have some idea what they do there, while I have not the slightest. Will you, Guy?” he persisted more earnestly, as he heard wheels in the street, and was sure old Sorrel had come again.

Guy Remington liked anything savoring of afrolic, but in his mind there were certain conscientious scruples touching the justice of the thing, and so at first he demurred; while the doctor still insisted, until at last he laughingly consented tocommencethe examination, provided the doctor would sit by, and occasionally come to his aid.

“You must write the certificate, of course,” he said, “testifying that she is qualified to teach.”

“Yes, certainly, Guy, if she is; but maybe she won’t be, and my orders are, to be strict—very strict at first, and cut one or two. You have no idea what a row the town is in.”

“How did the girl look?” Guy asked, and the doctor replied: “Saw nothing but her bonnet and a blue ribbon. Came in a queer old go-giggle of a wagon, such as your country farmers drive. There was an old man with her in a camlet cloak. Guess she won’t be likely to impress either of us, particularly as I am bullet-proof, and you have been engaged for years. By the way, when do you cross the sea again for the fair Lucy? Rumor says, this summer.”

“Rumor is wrong, as usual, then,” was Guy’s reply, a soft light stealing into his handsome eyes. Then, after a moment, he added: “Miss Atherstone’s health is far too delicate for her to incur the risk of aclimate like ours. If she were here I should be glad, for it is terribly lonely up at Aikenside, and I must stay there, you know. It would be a shame to let the place run down.”

“And do you really think a wife would make it pleasanter?” Dr. Holbrook asked, the tone of his voice indicating a little doubt as to a man’s being happier for having a helpmate to share his joys and sorrows.

But no such doubts dwelt in the mind of Guy Remington. Eminently fitted for domestic happiness, he looked forward anxiously to the time when Lucy Atherstone, the fair English girl to whom he had become engaged when he visited Europe, four years ago, should be strong enough to bear transplanting to American soil. Twice since his engagement he had visited her, finding her always loving and sweet, but never quite ready to come with him to his home in America. He must wait a little longer; and he was waiting, satisfied that the girl was worth the sacrifice, as indeed she was, for a fairer, sweeter flower never bloomed than Lucy Atherstone, his affianced bride. Guy loved to think of her, and as the doctor’s remarks brought her to his mind, he went off into a reverie concerning her, becoming so lost in thought, that untilthe doctor’s hand was laid upon his shoulder, by way of rousing him, he did not see that what his friend had designated as ago-gigglewas stopping in front of the office, and that from it a young lady was alighting.

Naturally polite, Guy’s first impulse was to go to her assistance, but she did not need it, as was proven by the light spring with which she reached the ground. The white-haired man was with her again, but he evidently did not intend to stop, and a close observer might have detected a shade of sadness and anxiety upon his face as Madeline called cheerily out to him, “Good-bye, grandpa. Don’t fear for me, and I hope you will have good luck;” then, as he drove away, she ran a step after him and said, “Don’t look so sorry, please, for if Mr. Remington won’t let you have the money, there’s my pony, Beauty. I am willing to give him up.”

“Never, Maddy. It’s all the little fortin’ you’ve got. I’ll let the old place go first;” and chirruping to Sorrel, the old man drove on, while Madeline walked, with a beating heart, to the office door where she knocked timidly.

Glancing involuntarily at each other, the young men exchanged meaning smiles, while the doctor whispered softly, “Verdant—that’s sure.”

As Guy sat nearest the door, it was he who opened it, 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, and whom she naturally mistook for Dr. Holbrook, whom she had never seen.

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