To see Oliver cry was in these days a rare sight to Mildred, and partially forgetting her own sorrow in her grief at having caused him pain, she laid her arm across his neck, and in her sweetest accents said:
“Dear, dear Olly, I didn’t think you would feel so badly for me. There—don’t,” and she brushed away the tears which only fell the faster. “I shall get over it, maybe; Judge Howell says I will, and if I don’t I sha’n’t always feel as I do now—I couldn’t and live. I shall be comfortably happy by and by, perhaps, and then if I never marry, you know you and I are to live together. Up at Beechwood, maybe. That is to be mine some day, and you shall have that pleasant chamber looking out upon the town and the mountains beyond. You’ll read to me every morning, while I work for the children of some Dorcas Society, for I shall be a benevolent old maid, I guess. Won’t it be splendid?” and in her desire to comfort Oliver, who, she verily believed, was weeping because she was not going to marry Lawrence Thornton, Mildred half forgot her own grief.
Dear Milly! She had yet much to learn of love’s great mystery, and she could not understand how great was the effort with which Oliver dried his tears, and smiling upon her, said:
“I trust the time you speak of will never come, for I would far rather Lawrence should do the reading while you work for children with eyes like yours, Milly,” and he smiled pleasantly upon her.
He was beginning to comfort her now. His own feelings were under control, and he told her how, though it would be right for her to send the letter as she promised, Lawrence would not consent. He would come at once to seek an explanation, and by some means the truth would come out, and they be happy yet.
“You are my good angel, Olly,” said Mildred. “You always know just what to say, and it is strange you do, seeing you never loved any one as I do Lawrence Thornton.”
And Mildred’s snowy fingers parted his light-brown hair, all unconscious that their very touch was torture to the young man.
“I am going now, and my heart is a great deal lighter than when I first came in,” she said, and pressing her lips to his forehead she went down the stairs and out into the moonlight, not singing, not dancing, not running, but with a quicker movement than when she came, for there was stealing over her a quiet hopelessness that, as Oliver had said, all would yet be well.
Monday morning came, and with a throbbing heart, and fingers which almost refused to do their office, she wrote to Lawrence Thornton:
“I cannot be your wife,—neither can I give you any reason.