Mary Jane Holmes

“ Toward the boy with the twisted feet, Aunt Hepsy, as she was called, looked askance, while all the kinder feelings of her nature seemed called into being by the sweet, winning ways of the baby Bessy; but when one bright September day they laid the little one 30away beneath the autumnal grass, and came back to their home without her, she steeled her heart against the entire world, and the wretched Hannah wept on her lonely pillow, uncheered by a single word of comfort, save those her little Oliver breathed into her ear. ”

“ I never had any, Judge Howell says, and my mother put me in a basket, and left me up at Beechwood, ever so long ago. It thundered and lightened awfully, and I wish the thunder had killed me before I was as tired and sorry as I am now. There’s nobody to love me anywhere but Richard and Oliver, and Richard, I guess, is dead, while Oliver has crippled feet, and if he grows to be a man he can’t earn enough for me and him, and I’ll have to stay with grandmother till I die. ”

“ At last I made the acquaintance of a fair young English girl, and making her my wife, removed with her to England, where, little more than a year since, she died, leaving me nothing to love but Edith. Then my thoughts turned homeward, for I promised Lucy, when dying, that I would seek a reconciliation with my father. So I crossed the ocean again, coming first to Dresden, for this wild, out-of-the-way place is connected with some of the sweetest and saddest memories of my life. ”

“ She never once thought of him as a man, and just as she was wont to do of old, just so she did now,—she wound her arms around his neck, and kissing his forehead, where the blue veins were swelling, she told him how glad she was to be there with him again,—told him how sorry she was to find him so feeble and thin, and lastly, how proud she was when she heard from Lawrence Thornton that he was first in his class, and bade fair to make the great man she long ago predicted he would make. ”

“ He could not read how much Mildred Howell was beloved by another than himself, and he let it lay just where it had dropped from his nerveless fingers.
180“Why will she torture me so?” he cried. “Why does she come to me day after day with her bright face, and her words of love which sound so much like mockery, and yet ’tis far better thus than to have her know my wicked secret. She would hate me then,—would loathe me in my deformity just as I loathe myself. Oh, why didn’t I die years ago, when we were children together, and I had not learned what it was to be a cripple!” ”

“ In all the world there was nothing half so dear to the proud woman as her young half-sister, and, as some fierce tigress keeps guard over its only remaining offspring, so she watched with jealous eye to see that nothing harmed her Lilian. For Mildred Howell she had conceived a violent aversion, because she knew that one of Lawrence Thornton’s temperament could not fail to be more or less influenced by such glowing beauty and sparkling wit as Mildred possessed. ”

“ LILIAN AND MILDRED.
The miserable three years are gone, or nearly so, and all around the Beechwood mansion the July sun shines brightly, while the summer shadows chase each other in frolicsome glee over the velvety sward, and in the maple trees the birds sing merrily, as if they know that the hand which has fed them so often with crumbs will feed them again on the morrow. ”

“ With a look of proud disdain upon his handsome, boyish face, Richard, who on account of his delicate health had not returned to college, heard from time to time what the gossiping villagers had to say of himself, and when at last it was told to him that he was exonerated from all blame, and that some had even predicted what the result would be, were his interest in the baby to continue until she were grown to womanhood, he burst into a merry laugh, the first which had escaped him since he came back to Beechwood. ”

“ For one short year has Mildred been a happy wife, and in that time no shadow has crossed her pathway save when she thinks of Oliver, and then her tears flow at once; still she knows that it is well with him, and she would not, if she could, have him back again in a world where he suffered so much. Well kept and beautiful is the ground about his grave, for Richard’s tasteful hand is often busy there, and on the costly marble which marks the spot are inscribed the words ”

“ Thornton covered his face with his hand, and whispered faintly, “My grandchild! My Mildred! That beautiful creature Helen’s child!” and with all his softer feelings awakened, the heart of the cold, stern man yearned toward the young girl he had once affected to despise. “Poor boy,” he said, as he thought of Lawrence, “’twill be terrible to him, for his whole soul was bound up in her. Where is this woman? There may be some mistake. I trust there is, for the young people’s sake,” and the generous feeling thus displayed swept away at once all animosity from the Judge’s heart. ”

“ It had come to her that day, for the first time, that she was not Mildred Hawkins, as she had supposed herself to be, and coupled with the tale was a taunt concerning her uncertain parentage. But Mildred was too young to understand the hint; she only comprehended that she was nobody,—that the baby Bessy she had seen so often in her dreams was not her sister,—that the gentle, loving woman, who had died of consumption two years before, was nothing but her nurse,—and worse than all the rest, the meek, patient, self-denying Oliver, or Clubs, was not her brother. ”

“ There is surely a mistake,” said Oliver, more to himself than to Lawrence, who rejoined:
“There could be no mistake. She must have received some one of them, but she answered none, and in despair I went away, believing, as I now do, that we were all deceived and she loved another. Wait,—listen,” he said, as he saw Oliver about to interrupt him. “Father and Geraldine always wished me to marry Lilian, and until I learned how much I loved Mildred Howell, I thought it very likely I should do so.” ”

“ Lawrence asked, a little anxious to hear what she had to say.
With a merry laugh, Geraldine replied:
“Poor little chicken, she can’t bear her grief at all, and it almost killed her to find that you preferred another to herself. But she’ll get over it, I daresay. Mildred is a beautiful girl; and though I always hoped, and indeed expected, that you would marry Lilian, you are, of course, at liberty to choose for yourself; and I am glad you have made so good a choice. When is the happy day?” ”

“ Of his own accord, and because he knew it would please Mildred, the Judge had caused what was once her chamber at the gable-roof to be finished off and fitted into a cozy library for Oliver, who when at home spent many a happy hour there, bending sometimes over his books, and thinking again of the years gone by, and of the little girl who had often cried herself to sleep within those very walls. It was well with her now, he knew and he blessed God that it was so, even though his poor feet might never tread the flowery path in which it was given her to walk. ”

“ With an almost superhuman effort, Judge Howell took him in his arms,—gently, tenderly, for Mildred’s sake,—and carrying him down the Cold Spring path, laid him away in the little room beneath the gable-roof, where there was none to sing to him of Mildred, none to comfort him save Hepsy, whose homely attempts were worse than failures, and who did him more hurt than good by constantly accusing Lawrence Thornton of being the cause of his illness. ”

“ You are an angel.”
Before Mildred could reply, Richard called to her, bidding her come down, and leaving Edith with Lawrence, she hastened to the parlor, where the Judge was waiting to receive her. With heaving chest and quivering lip, he held her to himself, and she could feel the hot tears dropping on her hair, as he whispered:
“My Gipsy, my Spitfire, my diamond, my precious, precious child. If I hadn’t been a big old fool, I should have known you were a Howell, and that madame couldn’t have imposed that stuff on me. Hanged if I ever believed it! Didn’t I swear all the time ’twas a lie? ”

“ She’s in love with a man! She told me so confidentially this morning, but wouldn’t tell me his name. Why, how your face flushes up? It is awful hot,—ain’t it?” and Lilian began to fan herself with her leghorn hat, while Lawrence, leaning from the window, and watching the wheels grinding into the gravelly sand, indulged himself in thoughts not wholly complimentary either to Lilian or the man whom Mildred Howell loved. ”

“ Poor Milly! She thought her heart would burst, and nothing but a most indomitable will could have sustained her; kissing him several times she arose, and making some excuse, hurried away up to her room. It took but a moment to put on her bonnet and shawl, and stealing noiselessly down the stairs, she passed out into the winter darkness, pausing for a moment beneath the uncurtained window, to gaze at Oliver, sitting there alone, the dim 71fire-light shining on his patient face and falling on his hair. ”

“ OLIVER AND MILDRED.
Oh, what a weary, weary road it was, winding up and up, and up, and seeming to the tired and heated Oliver as if it could never end, or Dresden be much nearer. Walking was always to him a slow process, and nothing but the thought of what lay beyond could have kept him up and moving on until his poor crippled feet were blistered and his head was throbbing with pain. ”

“ Love somebody!—ah me, never human being worshipped another as I have worshipped Mildred Howell; and after I’m dead, you may tell her how the cripple loved her, but not till then, for Lawrence, when I die, it must be with my head on Mildred’s shoulder. ”

“ Once during the spring Lawrence Thornton came again to Beechwood, renewing his acquaintance with Mildred, who, comparing him with other boys of her acquaintance, regarded him as something more than mortal, and after he was gone, she was never weary of his praises. Once in speaking of him to her teacher, Miss Harcourt, she said, “He’s the handsomest boy I ever saw, and he knows so much, too. I’d give the world if Oliver was like him,” and Mildred’s sigh as she thought of poor lame Oliver was echoed by the white-faced boy without the door, who had come up just in time to hear her remarks. ”

“ The woman who repeated this to Mildred wondered at her indifference, for she scarcely seemed to hear, certainly not to care, but the storm within was terrible, and when alone in the privacy of her chamber it burst forth with all its force, and kneeling by her bedside she asked that she might die before another than herself was the bride of Lawrence Thornton. Poor, poor little Milly! ”

“ Dear, dear Lawrence, I’ve come back to you, and we shall not be parted again. It is all a fraud,—a wicked lie. I am not Mildred Hawley,—I am Mildred Howell,—Richard’s child. He’s down-stairs, Lawrence. My own father is in the house. ”