Madeline by Mary Jane Holmes

At last the answer came, and it was Maddy who brought it to Aikenside. 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 post-mark, and that it was in the delicate handwriting of some lady, 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 placing the letter carefully in her basket she kept on to Aikenside.

The letter was just like Lucy, 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 her mother 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 Guy, but she would think of him, oh! so often, teaching that dear little Maddy Clyde, and she should 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 in store for them.