Milly

“ A transformation. Something had found its way into Milly’s heart and stirred up all the good that was there into vigorous life. In her eager, tear-dimmed eyes he saw something shining which altered forever his point of view. He was bewildered. What was this thing which he had had in his mind! Yesterday seemed far away; the thought of it made him shudder. But what had come to Milly? He reached out his hand. Their eyes met, and he understood. A new sense of humanity brought man and woman into a wonderful kinship. He opened his arms, and Milly crept into them with a little sob of content. ”

“ When Milly woke up next morning there was no nice sunshine creeping on to her bed as it had done almost ever since they came to Ravensnest; but instead there was rain beating steadily against the window, coming down out of a heavy gray sky, and looking as if it meant to go on for ever.
“Oh dear!” sighed Milly, as she began to dress, “we can’t go out, and the wild strawberries will get so wet. ”

“ The doctor sighed. "That is not very easy to do, Milly," he said.
"It's very hard, I think," said Milly, "especially when you love somebody very much—" (and she laid her head on the doctor's shoulder) , "and are afraid they'll love somebody else better than they do you," and the little girl heaved a deep sigh as she spoke.
"Suppose I should love this cousin in India better than you, Milly, what should you do?"
The little girl lifted her eyes at the question. "I think Jesus would help me not to mind about it, because he is your cousin, and you ought to love him," she said. ”

“ Milly and Oliver lived at Willingham, a little town in Oxfordshire, as I have already told you. Their father was a doctor, and they lived in an old-fashioned house, in a street, with a long shady garden stretching away behind it. Milly and Oliver loved their father, and whenever he put his brown face inside the nursery door, two pairs of little feet went running to meet him, and two pairs of little hands pulled him eagerly into the room. ”

“ She lived there on the canvas, eternally young and strong. Milly could admire the mastery of the painting even in the swell of her hatred for the woman who had taken her lover-husband from her. He was young when he had done that,—barely twenty-seven. A man who could paint like that at twenty-seven ought to have gone far. Even Milly in the gloom of her prejudiced soul felt something like awe for the power in him, which seemingly justified the wrong he had done her. Even Milly perceived the tragic laws stronger than herself, larger than her little world of domestic moralities. ”

“ The mysterious sounds issue from the yellow room, and Milly pushes the door open, and stands on the threshold. No poor daylight spirit is answerable for the hullabaloo; but on a stool, before an open harmonium, sits a real tangible human being, who is rolling from side to side, in an ecstasy of delight at the hideous discord he is evoking. He wears a smart grey and scarlet livery, his silk calves are en evidence; he is, in short, one of the footmen, who has apparently a taste for music, and who believes Milly to be miles away at the present moment. ”

“ She had played the graceful part of heroine in a hundred imaginary dramas; yet in actual life she had been engaged for two years to a sandy-haired, freckled face young fellow, who chewed tobacco, and bought the dry leaf in lots for a factory in Richmond. From romance to reality is a hard distance, and the most passionate dreamer is often the patient drudge of domestic service.
And yet even to-day Milly was not without secret misgivings as to the wisdom of her choice. She knew he was not her hero, but in her short visits to larger cities she had met no one who had come nearer her ideal lover. ”

“ Milly looked at her gently. "You need not hide from me," she said.
"No. I shall tell you everything," assented the woman. "I want to."
Milly studied the photograph a minute and placed it on the table beside her where she could see it as she leaned back in her chair. She would have the son's face before her while the mother told her story.
"He has an open face," she said half to herself.
The woman relaxed subtly to it. A little sob stole to her lips and broke through in quick words: "Oh, he is true! He is true— No one who knows him could doubt it!" ”

“ It was a long time since Milly had mentioned this name, and all thought it had faded from her memory.
It brought the tears to the widow's eyes as she heard it.
"What makes you cry?" asked Milly. "You said one day I should see papa. Won't Jesus take me to see him soon?"
"Perhaps He will, dear," replied the widow, kissing the little face. ”

“ Something far within the woman's face—a certain wild beauty—seemed to shine out elusively, and Milly, over her knitting, had a sense of truth in the words and a quick curiosity about the man who had seen and evoked the beauty in its uncouth setting.
"I am old now," went on the woman slowly. "It was when I was young he gave them to me, most of them—but none so beautiful as the emeralds—" She seemed lost in thought, and Milly did not speak or move. ”

“ No,” said Milly.
“It can be no one else.”
“Indeed?” said Milly, “are you sure?”
“It is not -” Before he could say more, she put her hand upon his mouth.
“Yes it is!” said Milly. “The young lady (she is very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, with a little servant-maid. As you always dated your letters from the college, she came there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw her. She likes me too!” said Milly. ”

“ Milly could make nothing of the blurred canvas and was depressed. Jack seemed more intent on watching the lithe figure, with the mottled flesh tones, the steel-blue eyes, the mocking mouth than in putting brush to canvas. When Milly complained of his dawdling, the Baroness remarked with a curl of her lips,—
"How do you expect an artist to work with his wife hanging over his brushes and counting every stroke?" ”

“ Everybody thinks I am rich, but, Milly, I had better be as poor as the boy who brought you here—Bob, the fisher-boy; I know he is gentle, kind and obedient. I know he enjoys many things; while I—I never enjoy anything. ”

“ And here this morrow do I find a good two pages all scribbled o’er of Milly’s writing. Well! ’tis not my fault, so I trust shall not be my blame.
And it is true, as Milly saith, that she is better-favoured than I. As for Anstace, I wis not, only I know and am well assured, that I am least comely of the four. But she should never have writ what she did touching Father’s nose, and if it cost me two pence, that must I say. I do love every bit of Father, right down to the tip of his nose, and I never thought if it were well-favoured or no. ’Tis Father, and that is all for me. ”

“ The little girl clapped her hands with delight. "O yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "I think my papa was a soldier, and my mamma a beautiful lady, that was always ill. But there were black people where we lived," she suddenly said.
The doctor had little doubt before but that this little waif the sea had cast up at his door was his cousin's long-lost daughter, and these sudden flashes of light on the all-but-forgotten past that came to Milly's mind did but confirm it. And he felt sure now that he should have to yield his place—the first place in the little girl's affection—to another. ”

“ He is not tied down to stupid humdrum matters, such like as sewing, and cooking, and distilling, and picking of flowers, with a song or twain by now and then to cheer you. A man can preach and fight and write books and make folk listen.”
“I misdoubt if thou art right, Milly, to say that a man hath the more of his own way always,” saith Mother. “Methinks there be many women get much of that.”
“Then a man is not tied down to one corner. He can go and see the world,” saith Milly.
“In short,” quoth Aunt Joyce, “the moral of thy words, Milly, is—‘Untie me.’”
“I wish I were so!” mutters Milly. ”

“ At first he was going to be very brave, and stay there just as long as Miss Milly wished, determined not to show any sign of penitence; but before the first day was out he found it decidedly tedious not to be his own master, and run about as he had done. In vain he framed every excuse to get out, and plead with Milly, but she was inexorable. Always pleasant and kind, she bore patiently his childish threats, sometimes taking him with her to walk, that he might have the benefit of air and exercise, but never permitting him to go alone. ”

“ Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly's toilet, and was a very useful lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time; and, at last, tapping Milly under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently—
'I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She really is a very pretty creature.'
And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which made her still prettier, on the mirror. ”

“ And then, just as he was congratulating himself that he had a tool to his hand as fine and keen-tempered as Milly—and trusty—and that she would not be always making extortionate demands for salary or promotion—like a man—he seemed to love the work for itself—just as he was settling down comfortably to all this Milly had announced her intention of setting up an office of her own. ”

“ Milly perhaps was the only native Canadian that came in their way. It was a thoroughly British settlement, and it is a noteworthy fact that the only well-to-do man in the place was an American. It was he who lived in the square, red brick house with white blinds always pulled down, even in soft welcome spring days, and with plaster casts of lions and deer couchant on futile little wooden pedestals in the garden. ”

“ It would be so nice to be with Milly every day and know that she was beyond the reach of his grandmother’s cruelty, and bursting into tears he stammered out his thanks to the Judge, who without a sign of recognition for old Hepsy, who was dipping candles with a most sour expression on her puckered lips, started back through the deep snow-drifts, feeling more than repaid, when he saw the little, eager face pressed against the pane, and then heard a sweet, young voice calling him “the best man in the world.” ”

“ Why, Milly, what have you been doing to your cheeks?”
“She’s been crying,” said Olly, in spite of Milly’s pulling him by the sleeve to be quiet, “because I stickened her doll.”
“Well, and quite right too. Dolls weren’t made to be stickied. But now, who’s going to carry my bag upstairs? Take it gently, Milly, it’s got my cap inside, and if you crumple my cap I shall have to sit with my head in a bandbox at dinner. Old ladies are never seen without their caps you know. The most dreadful things would happen if they were! Olly, you may put my umbrella away. ”

“ Milly looked disappointed. "I wish I wasn't a little girl, then," she said. "Little girls don't seem to be any good in the world, if they can't help when people are ill."
The doctor drew her closer to him. "Don't say that, my darling. Little girls do not know how much good they may do in the world."
"What good," asked Milly, curiously, "if they can't help people when they are ill?"
"What makes you so anxious about this?" asked the doctor.
"I want to help Bob and Jack, and then—then, you know, that would be like Jesus—who went about helping everybody He could." ”

“ What is the matter?" asked the lady, rousing herself to look at her husband. The expression of his countenance startled her, and she came around to his side. "What is it, Edgar?" she said. "Tell me, do tell me what has happened."
"Wait a minute, my dear, until I have finished, and then I will tell you all—everything," he added.
"Everything!" she repeated. "About what?"
"About the darling child—our long-lost Milly." ”

“ Why his judgment so mattered remained to be seen; but it was this divination, in any case, that now determined Milly's rejoinder. "No. She knows you. She has probably reason to. And you all, here, know each other—I see that—so far as you know anything. You know what you're used to, and it's your being used to it—that, and that only—that makes you. ”

“ You accused me just now of saying that Milly's in love with you. Well, if you come to that, I do say it. So there you are. That's the good she'll do us. It makes a basis for her seeing you—so that she'll help us to go on. ”

“ She would leave anything she was at when he called her and opening the little gate by the one hawthorn tree leading into the orchard, see him safe down the slope to the side of the little brook where she would give him her arm, and thus their walk would commence in earnest. Four years had brought a great change in Milly. New ideas, new habits, association with such thorough and high-bred gentleman and the natural desire to improve and grow worthy of such dearly esteemed company, had altered her completely. ”

“ Norton, “so perhaps it doesn’t deserve a better name. And after Bletchley—look again, Milly.”
“Rugby,” said Milly, reading the names as her mother pointed, “and then Stafford, and then Crewe—what a funny name, mother!—and then Wigan, and then Warrington, and then Lancaster. Ox-en-holme, Kendal, Wind-er-mere. Oh, mother, what a long way! Why, we’ve got right to the top of England.”
“Stop a bit, Milly, and let me tell you something about these places. First of all we shall get out of the train at Bletchley, and get into another train that will go faster than the first. ”

“ It was a use of her that many a girl would have been doubtless quick to resent; and the kind of mind that thus, in our young lady, made all for mere seeing and taking is precisely one of the charms of our subject. Milly had practically just learned from him, had made out, as it were, from her rumbling compartment, that he gave her the highest place among their friend's actual properties. ”