So it was at last decided that both the Judge and Oliver should act as her escort, by means of insuring her greater safety, and then, with a feverish restlessness, Mildred counted the lagging hours, taking no interest in anything, not even in the bridal dress, which was this day finished and tried on.
Very, very beautiful she looked in it, with the orange blossoms resting amid the braids of her nut-brown hair, but she scarcely heeded it for the terrible something which whispered to her continually:
“You will never wear it,—never.”
Then as her vivid imagination pictured to her the possibility that that toothless hag might prove to be her mother, and herself lying dead in the deserted hut just as she surely should do, her face grew so white that Geraldine asked in alarm what was the matter.
“Nothing much,” she answered, as she threw off the bridal dress. “I am low-spirited to-day, I guess.”
“You’ll have a letter to-night, maybe, and that will make you feel better,” suggested Geraldine.
“I hope so,” returned Milly, and fearful lest Geraldine, whom all the day she had tried to avoid, should speak again of the woman, she ran off upstairs, and indulged in a good, hearty cry, glancing often over her shoulder as if afraid there was some goblin there come to rob her of happiness.
Never once, however, did she waver in her resolution of going to the hut, and just after the sun went down she presented herself to the Judge, asking if he were ready.
“Ready for what? Oh, I know, that wild-goose chase. Yes, I’m ready.”
And getting his hat and cane, they started, stopping for Oliver, who even then tried to dissuade Mildred from going.