Laughing at what he called her nervousness, the Judge walked away to give some orders to his men, and Mildred tried various methods of killing time, and making the day seem shorter. Just before sunset she stole away again to Oliver, but Hepsy would not let her see him.
“He’s allus wus after you’ve been up there,” she said. “He’s too weakly to stan’ the way you rattle on, so you may as well go back,” and Mildred went back, wondering how her presence could make Oliver worse, and thinking to herself that she would not go to see him once during the next day, unless, indeed, the letter came, and then she must show it to him,—he’d feel so badly if she didn’t.
The to-morrow so much wished for came at last, and spite of Mildred’s belief to the contrary, the hours did go on as usual, until it was five o’clock, and she heard the Judge tell Finn to saddle the horses, and ride with him to the village.
“I am going up the mountain a few miles,” he said; “and as Mildred will want to see the evening papers before my return, you must bring them home.”
The Judge knew it was not the papers she wanted, and Mildred knew so, too, but it answered quite as well for Finn, who, within half an hour after leaving the house, came galloping up the hill.
“Was there anything for me?” asked Mildred, meeting him at the gate.
“Yes’m,” he answered; “papers by the bushel. There’s the Post, the Spy, the Traveler, and——”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Mildred; “but the letter. Wasn’t there a letter?”
“Yes’m;” and diving first into one pocket and then into another, Finn handed her the letter.
She knew it by its superscription, and leaving the papers Finn had tossed upon the grass, to be blown about the yard, until they finally fell into the little destructive hands of Rachel’s grandbaby, she hurried to her room, and breaking the seal, saw that it was herself and not Lilian Veille whom Lawrence Thornton would have for his bride. Again and again she read the lines so fraught with love, lingering longest over the place where he called her “his beautiful, starry-eyed Mildred,” telling her “how heavy his heart was when he feared she loved another, and how that heaviness was removed when the Judge explained the matter.”