But Adam preferred Anna. The lady was young, he said, and it seemed to him more appropriate that Anna should attend her. Mrs. Burroughs thought so, too, and, with a sinking heart, Anna prepared herself for a second visit to the cottage. In her excitement she forgot entirely to ask the name of the stranger, and as she was not disposed to talk, nothing was said of the lady until the cottage was reached and she was ushered into the dining-room, where old Martha and a smart looking servant were busy with the bandages and hot water preparing for the invalid who had been carried to the pleasant bed-room opening from the parlor. CHAPTER V. MILDRED ATHERTON. “How is Miss Atherton?” Adam asked of Martha, while he kindly attempted to assist Anna in removing the heavy shawl her mother had wrapped around her. “Who? What did you call her?” Anna asked, her hands dropping helplessly at her side. “Why, I thought I told you. I surely did your mother. I beg pardon for my carelessness. It’s Mildred Atherton,” and Adam’s voice sank to a whisper. “She was on her way to visit Mrs. Harcourt. I suppose it would be well to send for Dunallen, but I thought it hardly proper for me to suggest it. I’ll let you get at it somehow, and see if she wants him. You girls have a way of understanding each other.” Knowing how, in similar circumstances, he should yearn for Anna’s presence, Adam had deemed it natural that Mildred’s first wish would be for Herbert, and one reason for his insisting that Anna should come back with him was the feeling that the beautiful girl, whose face had interested him at once, would be more free to communicate her wishes to one of her own age. “Mildred Atherton,” Anna kept repeating to herself, every vestige of color fading from her cheeks and lips, as she wondered how she could meet her, or what the result of the meeting would be. “Sarah, where are you? Has everybody left me?” came from the bed, where the outline of a girlish form was plainly discernible to Anna, who started at the tones of what seemed to her the sweetest voice she had ever heard. “Go to her,” Adam whispered, and Anna mechanically obeyed.