Mildred obeyed so far as going to bed was concerned, but the morning found her more impatient than she had been the previous night, and not even Oliver, to whom she confided the story, had the power to quiet her. Go to the deserted hut she would, and if the Judge would not accompany her she would go alone, she said. So it was at last decided that both the Judge and Oliver should act as her escort, by means of insuring her greater safety, and then, with a feverish restlessness, Mildred counted the lagging hours, taking no interest in anything, not even in the bridal dress, which was this day finished and tried on. Very, very beautiful she looked in it, with the orange blossoms resting amid the braids of her nut-brown hair, but she scarcely heeded it for the terrible something which whispered to her continually: “You will never wear it,—never.” Then as her vivid imagination pictured to her the possibility that that toothless hag might prove to be her mother, and herself lying dead in the deserted hut just as she surely should do, her face grew so white that Geraldine asked in alarm what was the matter. “Nothing much,” she answered, as she threw off the bridal dress. “I am low-spirited to-day, I guess.” “You’ll have a letter to-night, maybe, and that will make you feel better,” suggested Geraldine. “I hope so,” returned Milly, and fearful lest Geraldine, whom all the day she had tried to avoid, should speak again of the woman, she ran off upstairs, and indulged in a good, hearty cry, glancing often over her shoulder as if afraid there was some goblin there come to rob her of happiness. Never once, however, did she waver in her resolution of going to the hut, and just after the sun went down she presented herself to the Judge, asking if he were ready. “Ready for what? Oh, I know, that wild-goose chase. Yes, I’m ready.” And getting his hat and cane, they started, stopping for Oliver, who even then tried to dissuade Mildred from going. But he could not, and in almost unbroken silence the three went on their way, Mildred a little in advance, with a white, stony look upon her face, as if she had made up her mind to bear the worst, whatever it might be. CHAPTER XVII. THE DESERTED HUT. It was a tumble-down old shanty, which for many years had been uninhabited save by the bats and the swallows, which darted through the wide chinks in the crumbling wall, or plunged down the dilapidated chimney, filling the weird ruin with strange, unearthly sounds, and procuring for it the reputation of being haunted ground. The path leading to it was long and tedious, for after leaving the river bridge, it wound around the base of a hill, beneath the huge forest trees, which now in the dusky twilight threw their grim shadows over every near object, and insensibly affected the spirits of the three who came each moment nearer and nearer to the hut.