“Come here, won’t you?” said Mildred, holding out her hand; and won by the pleasant voice, the little girl went to her, and winding her chubby arms around her neck, said: “Is you most well, pretty lady?” Mildred answered by kissing her velvety cheek and hugging her closer to her bosom, while over her there swept a most delicious feeling, as if the beautiful creature, nestling so lovingly to her side, were very near to her. “Where do you live?” she asked; and the child replied: “Oh, in the ship, and in the railroad, and everything.” “But where’s your mother?” continued Mildred, and over the little girl’s face there flitted a shadow, as she replied: “Ma’s in heaven, and pa’s down-stairs smoking a cigar. He ties awful hard sometimes.” “Have you any sisters?” was the next interrogatory; and the answer was: “I’ve got one in heaven, and a brother, too,—so pa says. I never seen the sister, but when ma died, and they lifted me up to look at her in the box, there lay on her arm a little teeny baby, not so big as dolly, and they put them both under the grass, over the sea, ever and ever and ever so ways off,” and she pointed toward the setting sun, as if she thus would indicate the vast distance between herself and her buried mother. “You came from over the sea, then?” returned Mildred. “Will you tell me what your name is?” “_Edith Howell._ What is yours?” and Edith looked inquiringly at Mildred, who started suddenly, repeating: “Edith Howell! Edith Howell! and did your father come in the stage this morning?” “Yes,” returned the child. “He went off in it before I was up, and brought me Old Mother Hubbard. Don’t you want to see her?” and Edith ran to her own room, while Mildred clasped her hands to her head, which seemed almost bursting with the conviction which the name of Edith Howell had forced upon her. She knew now where she had seen a face like that of her stage companion. She had seen it in the pleasant drawing-room at Beechwood, and the eyes which had so puzzled her that morning had many and many a time looked down upon her from the portrait of _Richard Howell_. “’Tis he, ’tis he,” she whispered. “But why is he here instead of going to his father?” Then, as she remembered having heard how Richard Howell had cared for her, shielding her from the Judge’s wrath, and how once she had dared to hope that she might be his child, she buried her face in the pillow and wept aloud, for the world seemed so dark,—so dreary. “What you tie for, pretty lady?” asked little Edith, returning to her side, laden with dolls and toys, and Old Mother Hubbard, which last Mildred did not fully appreciate. “What is your name?” Edith said again, as, mounting upon the bed, she prepared to display her treasures. “Milly Hawley;” and Mildred’s voice trembled so that the child very easily mistook the word for _Minnie_.