“Yes, Dick,” he said, as he thought of all this. “It is like our dear Milly’s, and what is a little mysterious, the baby is called Mildred, too. It was written on a bit of paper, and pinned upon the dress.” “Then you will keep her, won’t you? and Beechwood will not be so lonely,” returned Richard, continuing after a pause, “Where is she, this little lady? I am anxious to pay her my respects.” “Down with Rachel, just where she ought to be,” said the Judge; and Richard rejoined, “Down with all those negroes? Oh, father, how could you? Suppose it were your child, would you want it there?” “The deuce take it—’tain’t mine—there ain’t a drop of Howell blood in its veins, the Lord knows, and as for my lying awake, feeding sweetened milk to that Maine woman’s brat, I won’t do it, and that’s the end of it. I won’t, I say,—but I knew’t would be just like you to want me to keep it. You have the most unaccountable taste, and always had. There isn’t another young man of your expectations, who would ever have cared for that——” “Father,” and Richard’s hand was laid upon the Judge’s arm. “Father, _Hetty is dead_, and we will let her rest, but if she had lived, I would have called no other woman my wife.” “And the moment you had called her so, I would have disinherited you, root and branch,” was the Judge’s savage answer. “I would have seen her and you and your children starve before I would have raised my hand. The heir of Beechwood marry Hetty Kirby! Why, her father was a blacksmith and her mother a factory girl,—do you hear?”