'Aunt Milly, my dear Aunt Milly,' he exclaimed, with unusual warmth, 'do you know what a little bird has told me?' he whispered, stooping his handsome head to kiss her.
'Oh, Cardie! do you know already? Have you met him?'
'Yes, and he will be here presently. Aunt Milly, I don't know what we are to do without you, but all the same Dr. John shall have you. He is the only man who is worthy of Aunt Milly.'
'There, that will do, you have not spoken to Ethel yet.'
Oh, how Mildred longed to be alone with her thoughts, and yet the sound of her lover's praises were very sweet to her; he was Richard's hero as well as Ethel's, she knew, but with Richard's entrance Ethel seemed to think she must be going.
'It is so late now, but I will come again to-morrow;' and then as Mildred bade her good-night she said another word or two of her exceeding gladness.
She would fain have declined Richard's escort, but he offered her no excuse. She found him waiting for her at the gate, and knew him too well to hope for her own way in this. She could only be on her guard and avoid any dangerous subject.
'You will all miss her dreadfully,' she said, as they crossed the market-place in full view of Dr. Heriot's house. 'I don't think any of you can estimate the blank her absence will leave at the vicarage.'
'I can for one,' he replied, gravely. 'Do you think I can easily forget what she has done for us since our mother died? But we shall not lose her—not entirely, I mean.'
'No, indeed.'