Mildred comprehended his meaning at once, and in reply to Geraldine, said: “I have a reason for wishing to know if you remember an old woman’s coming into the kitchen and asking for water, a day or two ago.” “Yes, I remember her well,” answered Geraldine, “for she reminded me so much of the city thieves. She asked several questions, too, about the girl who was to be married,—which was your room, and all that. Why? What of her?” “Nothing much,” returned Mildred. “How did she look?” “Like a witch,” answered Geraldine. “Tall, spare, angular, with a pock-marked face, a single long tooth projecting over her under lip, and a poking black bonnet. I thought I saw her going down the road just at dusk to-night, but might have been mistaken.” Mildred turned pale at the very idea of having ever been associated with such a creature, or of meeting her alone at the deserted hut, and she was trying to think of some excuse to render Geraldine for having thus questioned her, when one of the dressmakers came to the rescue, and called Miss Veille away. “What do you think now?” Mildred asked of the Judge, when they were alone. “Think as I did before,” he replied. “We won’t go near the hag. We don’t want to know who you are.” “But,” and drawing nearer to him, Mildred looked wistfully in his face; “but what if I am somebody whom Lawrence mustn’t marry? Wouldn’t it be better to know it before it’s too late?” “Heavens and earth, child,” returned the Judge. “Do you think anything can induce him to give you up. Wouldn’t you marry _him_ if he was anything short of a nigger?” This remark was suggestive, and Mildred chimed in: “I’ll ask Rachel about that woman. She saw her, too.” Hurrying off to the kitchen she found the old negress, whose story agreed exactly with Geraldine’s, except, indeed, that she described the stranger as worse-looking even than Miss Veille had done. “I saw such a person in the avenue to-night,” said Luce, who was present, while her little child six years old testified stoutly to having seen a woman with a big bonnet in the lower hall. “Thinks she’ll get some money,” growled the Judge, when Mildred repeated this to him; “but we’ll cheat her. If she knows who you are, let her come boldly and tell, and not entice you into the woods. There’s bedevilment somewhere.” But all his efforts were fruitless to convince Mildred. The more she thought of it, the more excited she grew, and the more anxious she became to meet a person who could tell her of her parentage,—of her mother, maybe; the mother she had never known, but had dreamed of many and many a time. “Go to bed,” the Judge said at last. “You’ll feel differently in the morning.”