Mildred was alone in her chamber her head resting upon the soft pillows which little Edith had arranged, her hands clasped over her forehead, and her thoughts with Lawrence Thornton, when a servant entered, bearing a card, and saying that the gentleman who sent it was in the parlor below.
“Oliver Hawkins!” and Mildred almost screamed as she read the name. “Dear, dear Oliver! show him up at once.”
The servant departed, and in a moment the well-known step was heard upon the stairs, and darting forward, Mildred passed her arm round him, or he would have fallen, for he was very weak and faint.
“Mildred, dear Mildred!” was all he could, at first, articulate, and sinking upon the sofa, he motioned her to remove his shoes from his swollen feet.
“Did you walk from the station?” she asked, in much surprise.
“Yes,” he whispered. “There was no one to bring me.”
“What made you? What made you?” she continued, and he replied:
“I couldn’t wait, for I have come to bring you joyful news; to tell you that you are free to marry Lawrence,—that you are not his father’s grandchild. It was all a wicked fraud got up by Geraldine Veille, who would have Lawrence marry her sister. I heard her telling grandmother last night, and hiring her to say she found a paper among my mother’s things confirming Esther Bennett’s story. Oh, Milly, Milly, you hurt,” he cried, as in her excitement she pressed hard upon his blistered feet.
Those poor feet! How Mildred loved them then! How she pitied and caressed them, holding them carefully in her lap, and dropping tears upon them, as she thought of the weary way they had come to bring her this great joy,—this joy too good to be believed until Oliver related every particular, beginning with the time when Lawrence first came back to Beechwood. He did not, however, tell her how, day and night, until his own brain grew dizzy, he had sung to the maniac of the maid with the nut-brown hair, nor did he tell her of anything that he had done, except to overhear what Geraldine had said; but Mildred could guess it all,—could understand just how noble and self-denying he had been, and the blessings she breathed upon him came from a sincere heart.