'No, it is not, and she knows it,' returned the girl, excitedly; 'ask her, Heriot; look at her; that is not the reason she will not suffer me to go to Roy.' Mildred turned her burning face bravely on the two. 'Whatever reasons I have, Polly knows me well enough to respect them,' she said, with dignity; 'it is far better for Roy that his aunt or his sister should be with him. Polly ought to know that her place is beside you.' 'Aunt Milly, how dare you speak so,' cried the girl, hotly, 'as though Roy were not my own--own brother. Have we not cared for each other ever since I came here a lonely stranger; do you think he will get better if he is fretting, and knows why you have left me behind; when he was ill in the summer, would he have any one to wait on him but me?' 'Oh, Polly,' began Mildred, sorrowfully, for the girl's petulance and obstinacy were new to her; but Dr. Heriot stopped her. 'Let the child speak,' he said, quietly; 'she has never been perverse to you before; she has something on her mind, or she would not talk so.' The kind voice, the unexpected sympathy, touched Polly's sore heart; and as he held out his hand to her, she crept out of her dark corner. He drew her gently to his side. 'Now, Polly, what is it? there is something here that I do not understand--out with it like a brave lassie.' But she hung her head. 'Not now, not here, before the others,' she whispered, and with that he rose from his seat, but he still kept hold of her hand. 'Polly is going to make a clean breast of it; I am to hear her confession,' he said, with a cheerfulness that reassured Mildred. 'There is no time like the present. I mean to bring her back by and by, and then we will make our apologies together.' Mildred sighed as the door closed after them; she would fain have known what passed between them; her heart grew heavy with foreboding as time elapsed and they did not make their appearance. When her business was finished, and Olive had left her, she sat for more than half an hour with her eyes fixed on the door, feeling as though she could bear the suspense no longer. She started painfully when the valves unclosed. 'We have been longer than I expected,' began Dr. Heriot. His face was grave, and Mildred fancied his eyes looked troubled. Polly had been crying. 'It was a rambling confession, and one difficult to understand,' he continued, keeping the girl near him, and Mildred noticed she leant her face caressingly against his coat-sleeve, as she stood there; 'and it goes back to the day of our picnic at Hillbeck.' Mildred moved uneasily; there was something reproachful in his glance directed towards herself; she averted her eyes, and he went on--