“Once, father, I thought to send her to you, but the remembrance of your words: ‘May you be cursed, and your children,’ was ringing in my ears, and I said, ‘he shall not have a chance to wreak his vengeance on my child. Strangers will be kinder far than my own flesh and blood,’ so I have resolved to send her to Judge Howell. ’Tis a queer place, but I can think of nothing better. He is alone in his great house, and who knows but he may adopt her as his own. “I have called her Mildred, too, praying earnestly that she may look like Mildred of the starry eyes and nut-brown hair, for that would soften the old Judge’s heart toward her. I have written to him an anonymous letter asking him to take her, and when I am dead, faithful Esther Bennett, who is nursing me, will take it and my baby to —— in Maine, where her sister lives. There she will mail the letter, and whether the Judge answers it or not, she will in a short time secretly convey Milly to his door, watching until some one takes her in. “Then she will look after my child, and if in coming years circumstances arise which seem to make it necessary for Mildred to know her parentage, she will seek her out, tell her who she is and carry you this letter. You may think me crazy to adopt this plan, and so, perhaps, I am. But my husband, who is her lawful protector, shall not have her, and as I do not care to burden you with _Hawley’s brats_, as you once termed any children which I might have, I shall send it to Beechwood. “My strength is failing me, father, and in a day or so I shall be dead. I wish I could see you all once more, particularly _Lawrence_, my darling little _brother Lawrence_. Baby looks some like him, I think, and should she ever come to you, bid him love his little niece for his dead sister Helen’s sake——” Mildred could not read another line—there was a sound like the fall of many waters in her ears,—the blood seemed curdling in her veins, and her very finger-tips tingled with one horrid, maddening thought. “Lawrence,—Lawrence,—little niece,” she moaned, and with eyes black as midnight, and face of a marble hue, she turned to the superscription, which she had not observed before, reading as she expected: “ROBERT THORNTON, Esq., BOSTON, MASS.” “Oh, Heaven!” she cried, rocking to and fro. “Isn’t it a dream. Isn’t there some mistake? Tell me, dear, good woman, tell me, is it true?” and in her unutterable agony she knelt abjectly before the witch-like creature, who answered back: “Poor, poor Milly. It _is_ true. All true, or I would not come here to save you from a marriage with your mother’s brother,—your own uncle, girl.” “Stop!” and Mildred screamed with anguish; “I will not know that name. Oh, Lawrence, Lawrence, you are surely lost to me for ever and ever!”