“Mildred”—and in the old woman’s voice there was something which made the young girl shudder—“there is not a drop of Howell blood in all your veins; but look!” and drawing from her skinny bosom a worn, soiled letter, she held it up in the moonlight, saying: “This your mother wrote two days before she died. It does not belong to you, for it is intended for your grandfather. I promised to give it to him, should it ever be necessary for him to know; but you may read it, girl. It will explain the whole better than I can.” “How can I read it here?” Mildred asked, and her companion replied by striking a match across the hearth, and lighting a bit of candle, which she brought from the depths of her pocket. Holding it between her thumb and finger, she said: “You see I’ve come prepared; but sit down, child. You’ll need to, maybe, before you get through,” and she pushed a block of wood toward Mildred, who sat down, while all through her frame the icy chills were running, as if she saw the fearful gulf her feet were treading. “Tell me first one thing,” she said, grasping the woman’s dress. “Tell me, am I greatly inferior to Lawrence Thornton?” Oh, that horrid, horrid smile, which broke over the old hag’s face, and made the one long tooth seem starting from the shrivelled gums, as she replied: “You are fully Lawrence Thornton’s equal.” “Then I can bear anything,” said Mildred; and opening the letter she pressed to her lips the delicate, though rather uneven handwriting, said to have been her mother’s. It was dated in New York, nearly eighteen years before, and its contents were as follows: “DEAR, DEAR FATHER:—Though you cast me off and turned me from your door, you are very dear to me; and should these lines ever come to you, pray think kindly of the erring child, whose fault was loving one so unworthy of her, for I did love Charlie, and I love him yet, although he has cruelly deserted me just when I need his care the most. Father, I am dying; dying all alone in this great city. Charlie is in New Orleans, gambling, drinking, and utterly forgetting me, who gave up everything for him. “On the pillow beside me lies my little girl-baby; and when I look at her I wish that I might live, but, as that cannot be, I must do for her the best I can. Charlie said to me when he went away, that after baby was born he should come back and take her from me, so as to extort money from you, and he would do it, too, if he had an opportunity, but I’d rather see her dead than under his wicked influence; so I shall put her where he cannot find her.