The Judge smiled quietly at this threat, and when Rachel appeared in answer to his ring, he said, “Open the register in the chamber above, and see that the bed is all right, then bring us some apples and nuts,—and,—wait till I get done, can’t you,—bring us that box of prunes. Do you love prunes, child?”
“Yes, sir, though I don’t know what they be,” sobbed Mildred, through the hands she had clasped over her face when she thought she must go back.
She knew she was not going now, and her eyes shone like diamonds as they flashed upon the Judge a look of gratitude. It wasn’t lonesome now in that handsome library where Mildred sat, eating prune after prune, and apple after apple, while the Judge sat watching her with an immense amount of satisfaction, and, thinking to himself how, on the morrow, if he did not change his mind, he would inquire the price of feminine dry goods, a thing he had not done in years. In his abstraction he even forgot that the clock was striking nine, and, half an hour later, found him still watching Mildred, and marvelling at her enormous appetite for nuts and prunes. But he remembered, at last, that it was his bed time, and, again ringing for Rachel, he bade her take the little girl upstairs.
It was a pleasant, airy chamber where Mildred was put to sleep, and it took her a long time to examine the furniture and the various articles for the toilet, the names of which she did not even know. Then she thought of Oliver, wondering what he would say if he knew where she was; and, going to the window, against which a driving storm was beating, she thought how much nicer it was to be in that handsome apartment than back in her little bed beneath the gable-roof, or even running away to Boston after Lawrence Thornton.
The next morning when she awoke, the snow lay high-piled upon the earth, and the wind was blowing in fearful gusts. But in the warm summer atmosphere pervading the whole house, Mildred thought nothing of the storm without. She only knew that she was very happy, and when the Judge came down to breakfast, he found her singing of her happiness to the gray house-cat, which she had coaxed into her lap.
“Shall she eat with you or wait?” asked Rachel, a little uncertain whether to arrange the table for two or one.
“With me, of course, you simpleton,” returned the Judge; “and bring on some sirup for the cakes,—or honey; which do you like best, child?”
Mildred didn’t know, but guessed that she liked both, and both were accordingly placed upon the table,—the Judge forgetting to eat in his delight to see how fast the nicely browned buckwheats disappeared.
“She’ll breed a famine if she stays here long,” Rachel muttered, while Finn looked ruefully at the fast decreasing batter.
But Mildred’s appetite was satisfied at last, and she was about leaving the table, when Hepsy’s sharp, shrill voice was heard in the hall, proclaiming to Rachel the astonishing news that Mildred Hawkins had run away and been frozen to death in a snow bank,—that Clubs, like a fool, had lost his senses and gone raving distracted, calling loudly for Milly and refusing to be comforted unless she came back.