Oliver shook his head and answered: “If she did she never told, though the night she burst that blood-vessel and died so suddenly, she tried to say something about you, for she kept gasping ‘Milly is,—Milly is,—’ and when she couldn’t tell, she pointed toward Beechwood.”
“Clubs!” and Mildred’s eyes grew black as midnight, as she looked into the boy’s face, “Clubs, Judge Howell is my father! for don’t you mind once that the widow Simms said I looked like the picture of his beautiful daughter, which hangs in the great parlor. I mean to go up there some day, and ask him if he ain’t.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t!” exclaimed Oliver, utterly confounded at the idea of Mildred’s facing the crusty, ill-natured Judge, and asking if he were not her father. “He’d pound you with his gold-headed cane. He hates you!” and Oliver’s voice sunk to a whisper. “He hates you because they do say you look like him, and act like him, too, when you are mad.”
This last remark carried Mildred’s thoughts backward a little, and for several moments she sat perfectly still; then leaving Tiger, whom all the time she had been fondling, she came to Oliver’s side, passed her hands caressingly over his face, smoothed his thin, light hair, timidly kissed his forehead, and whispered beseechingly:
“I am awful ugly, sometimes, I know. I scratched you once, Clubs, and stepped on your crooked feet, but I love you, oh, you don’t know how much; and if I ain’t your sister, you’ll love me just the same, won’t you, precious Oliver. I shall die if you don’t.”
There were tears on the meek, patient face of Oliver, but before he could reply to this appeal, they were startled by the loud, shrill cry of——
“Mildred,—Mildred Hawkins!—what are you lazin’ away here for? I’ve been to the school-house and everywhere. March home this minute, I say,” and adjusting her iron-bowed specs more firmly on her sharp, pointed nose, Hepsy Thompson came toward the two delinquents, frowning wrathfully, and casting furtive glances around her, as if in quest of Solomon’s prescription for children who loitered on the road from school. At the sight of the ogress, Mildred grew white with fear, while Oliver, winding his arm protectingly around her, whispered in her ear:
“You are sorry I am not your brother, but you must be glad that she ain’t your granny!” and he jerked his elbow toward Aunt Hepsy, who by this time had come quite near.
Yes, Mildred was glad of that, and Oliver’s remark was timely, awakening within her a feeling of defiance toward the woman who had so often tyrannized over her. Instead of crying or hiding behind Oliver, as she generally did when the old lady’s temper was at its boiling-point, she answered boldly:
“I was kept after school for missing, and then I coaxed Clubs out here to tell me who I am, for I know now I ain’t Mildred Hawkins, and you ain’t my granny either.”