“Oh, Olly, darling Olly,” she said, still caressing his wounded feet, “the news is too good to be true. I dare not hope again lest I be cruelly disappointed, and I could not bear another shock. I have suffered so much that my heart is almost numb; and though you tell me I am free to marry Lawrence, I’m afraid there’s some mistake, and that I am his sister Helen’s daughter after all. If I am not, Olly, who am I? Who was my mother?—where is she now? and where is my father?”
There were tears in Mildred’s eyes,—once they choked her utterance as she said these last words, which, nevertheless, were distinctly heard in the adjoining room where Richard Howell sat, his face as white as ashes, his eyes unnaturally bright, and a compressed look about the mouth as if he had received some dreadful shock,—something which shook his heartstrings as they never were shaken before. He was reading by his window when Mildred met Oliver in the hall, and through the open door he heard distinctly the name “Mildred, dear Mildred!” and heard the girl he knew as Minnie answer to that name. Then the lettered page before him was one solid blur, the room around him was enveloped in darkness, and with his hearing quickened he sat like a block of stone listening, listening, listening, till every uncertainty was swept away, and from the depths of his inmost soul came heaving up “My child! my Mildred!” But though his heart uttered the words his lips gave forth no sound, and he sat there immovable, while the great drops of perspiration trickled down his face and fell upon his nerveless hands, folded so helplessly together. Then he attempted to rise, but as often sank back exhausted, for the shock had deprived him of his strength and made him weak as a little child.
But when Mildred asked, “Where is my father now?” he rose with wondrous effort, and tottering to her door, stood gazing at her with a look in which the tender love of eighteen years was all embodied. Oliver saw him first, for Mildred’s back was toward him, and to her he softly whispered, “Turn your head, Milly. There’s some one at the door.”
Then Mildred looked, but started quickly when she saw Richard Howell, every feature convulsed with the emotions he could not express, and his arms stretched imploringly toward her, as if beseeching her to come to their embrace.
“My daughter, my daughter!” he said, at last, and though it was but a whisper it reached the ear of Mildred, and with a scream of unutterable joy she went forward to an embrace such as she had never known before.
Oh, it was strange to see that strong man weep as he did over his beautiful daughter, but tears did him good, and he wept on until the fountain was dried up, murmuring, “My Mildred,—my darling,—my first-born,—my baby, Hetty’s and mine. The Lord be praised who brought me to see your face when I believed you dead!” and all the while he said this he was smoothing her shiny hair, looking into her eyes, and kissing her girlish face, so much like his own as it used to be, save that it was softer and more feminine.
Wonderingly Oliver looked at them, seeking in vain for a clew with which to unravel the mystery, but when Mildred, remembering him, at last said:
“Oliver, this is Richard Howell,” he needed nothing more to tell him that he had witnessed the meeting between a father and his child.
To Mildred the truth came suddenly with the words, “My daughter.” Like a flash of light it broke on her,—the secret marriage with Hetty Kirby,—her strong resemblance to the Howells, and all the circumstances connected with her first arrival at Beechwood. There could be no mistake, and with a cry of joy she sprang to meet her father as we have described.
“I heard what he told you,” Richard said at last, motioning to Oliver. “I heard him call you Mildred, and from your conversation knew you were the child once left at my father’s door. You were my darling baby then; you are my beautiful Mildred now,” and he hugged her closer in his arms.