“I used to think it was bad enough when I thought she was related,” said Mildred, “but now I know she hain’t no right, it seems a hundred times worse,—and I don’t know what to do.”
“I’d run away,” suggested the boy; and Mildred replied:
“Run where? I was never three miles from here in my life.”
“Run to Boston,” returned the boy. “That’s where I live. Cousin Geraldine wants a waiting-maid, and though she’d be mighty overbearing, father would be good, I guess, and so would Lilian,—she’s just about your size.”
“Who is Lilian?” Mildred asked, and he replied:
“I call her cousin, though she isn’t at all related. Father’s sister Mary married Mr. Veille, and died when Geraldine was born. Ever so many years after uncle married again and had Lilian, but neither he nor his second wife lived long, and as father was appointed guardian for Geraldine and Lilian, they have lived with us ever since. Geraldine is proud, but Lilian is a pretty little thing. You’ll like her if you come.”
“Should you be there?” Mildred asked, much more interested in the handsome boy than in Lilian Veille.
“I shall be there till I go to college,” returned the boy; “but Geraldine wouldn’t let you have much to say to me, she’s so stuck up, and feels so big. The boys at school told me once that she meant I should marry Lilian, but I sha’n’t if I don’t want to.”
Mildred did not answer immediately, but sat thinking intently, with her dark eyes fixed upon the stream running at her feet. Something in her attitude reminded the boy a second time of the resemblance which had at first so impressed him, and turning her face more fully toward him, he said:
“Do you know that you look exactly as my mother did?”