One bitter look of hatred Mr. Thornton cast upon him, and then moved slowly down the walk, hearing, even after he reached the gate, the words:
“Hanged if I don’t foreclose!”
“There! that’s done with!” said the Judge, walking back to the parlor, where Mildred still lay upon the sofa, stunned, and faint, and unable to move. “Poor little girl!” he began, lifting up her head and pillowing it upon his broad chest. “Are you almost killed, poor little Spitfire? You fought bravely though a spell, till he began to twit you of your mother,—the dog! Just as though you wasn’t good enough for his boy! You did right, darling, to say you wouldn’t have him. There! there!” and he held her closer to him, as she moaned:
“Oh, Lawrence! Lawrence! how can I give you up?”
“It will be hard at first, I reckon,” returned the Judge; “but you’ll get over it in time. I’ll take you over to England next summer, and hunt up a nobleman for you; then see what Bobum will say when he hears you are Lady Somebody.”
But Mildred did not care for the nobleman. One thought alone distracted her thoughts. She had promised to refuse Lawrence Thornton, and, more than all, she could give him no good reason for her refusal.
“Oh, I wish I could wake up and find it all a dream!” she cried; but, alas! she could not; it was a stern reality; and covering her face with her hands, she wept aloud as she pictured to herself Lawrence’s grief and amazement when he received the letter which she must write.
“I wish to goodness I knew what to say!” thought the Judge, greatly moved at the sight of her distress.
Then, as a new idea occurred to him, he said:
“Hadn’t you better go down and tell it all to Clubs,—he can comfort you, I guess. He’s younger than I am, and his heart ain’t all puckered up like a pickled plum.”