“You see I’ve come prepared; but sit down, child. You’ll need to, maybe, before you get through,” and she pushed a block of wood toward Mildred, who sat down, while all through her frame the icy chills were running, as if she saw the fearful gulf her feet were treading.
“Tell me first one thing,” she said, grasping the woman’s dress. “Tell me, am I greatly inferior to Lawrence Thornton?”
Oh, that horrid, horrid smile, which broke over the old hag’s face, and made the one long tooth seem starting from the shrivelled gums, as she replied:
“You are fully Lawrence Thornton’s equal.”
“Then I can bear anything,” said Mildred; and opening the letter she pressed to her lips the delicate, though rather uneven handwriting, said to have been her mother’s.
It was dated in New York, nearly eighteen years before, and its contents were as follows:
“Dear, Dear Father:—Though you cast me off and turned me from your door, you are very dear to me; and should these lines ever come to you, pray think kindly of the erring child, whose fault was loving one so unworthy of her, for I did love Charlie, and I love him yet, although he has cruelly deserted me just when I need his care the most. Father, I am dying; dying all alone in this great city. Charlie is in New Orleans, gambling, drinking, and utterly forgetting me, who gave up everything for him.
“On the pillow beside me lies my little girl-baby; and when I look at her I wish that I might live, but, as that cannot be, I must do for her the best I can. Charlie said to me when he went away, that after baby was born he should come back and take her from me, so as to extort money from you, and he would do it, too, if he had an opportunity, but I’d rather see her dead than under his wicked influence; so I shall put her where he cannot find her.
“Once, father, I thought to send her to you, but the remembrance of your words: ‘May you be cursed, and your children,’ was ringing in my ears, and I said, ‘he shall not have a chance to wreak his vengeance on my child. Strangers will be kinder far than my own flesh and blood,’ so I have resolved to send her to Judge Howell. ’Tis a queer place, but I can think of nothing better. He is alone in his great house, and who knows but he may adopt her as his own.
“I have called her Mildred, too, praying earnestly that she may look like Mildred of the starry eyes and nut-brown hair, for that would soften the old Judge’s heart toward her. I have written to him an anonymous letter asking him to take her, and when I am dead, faithful Esther Bennett, who is nursing me, will take it and my baby to —— in Maine, where her sister lives. There she will mail the letter, and whether the Judge answers it or not, she will in a short time secretly convey Milly to his door, watching until some one takes her in.