"No child of mine would be capable, as I trust, of secret, mean, underhand dealing, whatever the prize in view. When I said this to Mrs. George just now, she laughed at what she called my earnestness, and said I had no need to defend Mildred, she knew Mildred just as well as I did." Mildred's heart beat a trifle quicker as she listened. They were only giving her her due. "But," resumed Mrs. Dan, "quiet and undemonstrative as you have been, Mildred, your aunt has drawn the conclusion--lived in it, I may say--that the proposal she made to-day would not be unacceptable to you. I agreed with her, saying that such was my conviction. And let me tell you, Mildred, that a more attractive and a bettor young man than William Arkell does not live in Westerbury." Mildred silently assented to all in her heart. But she wondered what the proposal was. "You are strangely silent, child. Should you have any objection to become William Arkell's wife?" "There is one objection," returned Mildred, almost bitterly, as the thought of his intimacy with Charlotte Travice flashed painfully across her--"he has never asked me." "But--it is the same thing--he has asked his mother for you." A wild coursing on of all her pulses--a sudden rush of rapture in every sense of her being--and Mildred's lips could hardly frame the words-- "For _me_?" "He asked for you after dinner to-day--I thought I said so--that is, he broached the subject to his mother. After Mr. Arkell went back to the manufactory, he stayed behind with her in the dining-room, and spoke to her of his plans and wishes. He began by saying he was getting quite old enough to marry, and the sooner it took place now, the better." "Is this true?" gasped Mildred. "True!" echoed the affronted old lady. "Do you suppose Mrs. George Arkell would come here upon such an errand only to make game of us? True! William says he loves you dearly." Mildred quitted the room abruptly. She could not bear that even her mother should witness the emotion that bid fair, in these first moments, to overwhelm her. Never until now did she fully realize how deeply, how passionately, she loved William Arkell--how utter a blank life would have been to her had the termination been different. She shut herself in her bed-chamber, burying her face in her hands, and asking how she could ever be sufficiently thankful to God for thus bringing to fruition the half-unconscious hopes which had entwined themselves with every fibre of her existence. The opening of the door by her mother aroused her. "What in the world made you fly away so, Mildred? I was about to tell you that Mrs. George expects us to tea. Peter will join us there by and by." "I would rather not go out this evening, mamma," observed Mildred, who was really extremely agitated.