but of the mortgage and the foreclosure, begging the doctor to see
that the house was not sold, to tell them she was earning thirty-six
dollars by teaching school, that Beauty should be sold to save their
dear old home. All this was strange at first to the doctor, but the
rather voluble Mrs. Green, who had come to Grandma Markham's relief,
enlightened him, dwelling with a kind of malicious pleasure upon the
fact that Maddy's earnings, had she been permitted to get a
"stifficut," were to be appropriated toward paying the debt.

If the doctor had hated himself the previous day when he from the red
cottage gate, he hated himself doubly now as he went dashing down the
road, determined to resign his office of school inspector that very
day. And he did.

Summoning around him those who had been most active in electing him,
he refused to officiate again, assuring them that if any more
candidates came he should either turn them from his door or give them
a certificate without asking a question.

"Put anybody you like in my place," he said; "anybody but Guy
Remington. Don't for thunder's sake take him."

There was no probability of this, as Guy lived in another town, and
could not have officiated had he wished. But the doctor was too much
excited to reason upon anything save Madeline Clyde's case. That he
perfectly understood; and during the next few weeks his other patients
waited many times in vain for his coming, while he sat by Maddy's side
watching every change, whether for the worse or better. Even Agnes
Remington was totally neglected; and so one day she sent Guy down to
Devonshire to say that as Jessie seemed more than usually delicate,