“What for you jump?” asked Edith, as Mildred started involuntarily when her suspicions were thus confirmed.
Mr. Howell’s eyes seemed to ask the same question, and bowing her face over the curly head of the child, so as to conceal her tears, Mildred answered:
“I have been in Mayfield several times, and know an old gentleman whose son went off many years ago, and has never been heard of since.”
“What makes you ty?” persisted Edith, who felt the drops upon her hair.
“I was thinking,” returned Mildred, “how glad that old man will be if your father is the son he has so long considered dead.”
Mr. Howell was gazing fixedly at her.
“Miss Hawley,” he said, when she had finished speaking, “who are you?—that is, who are your parents, and why have you been in Mayfield?”
Mildred knew that her resemblance to his sister puzzled him just as it did every one, and for a moment she was tempted to tell him everything; then, thinking he would learn it fast enough when he went to Beechwood, she replied:
“My mother was Helen Thornton, of Boston, and my father, her music teacher, Charles Hawley, who died in New Orleans soon after I was born.”
Mr. Howell seemed disappointed, but he replied: