“I was thinking,” returned Mildred, “how glad that old man will be if your father is the son he has so long considered dead.” Mr. Howell was gazing fixedly at her. “Miss Hawley,” he said, when she had finished speaking, “who are you?—that is, who are your parents, and why have you been in Mayfield?” Mildred knew that her resemblance to his sister puzzled him just as it did every one, and for a moment she was tempted to tell him everything; then, thinking he would learn it fast enough when he went to Beechwood, she replied: “My mother was Helen Thornton, of Boston, and my father, her music teacher, Charles Hawley, who died in New Orleans soon after I was born.” Mr. Howell seemed disappointed, but he replied: “Helen Thornton your mother? I remember her well, and her marriage with Mr. Hawley. You do not resemble her one-half so much as you do my sister Mildred, for I am that old man’s son. I am Richard Howell.” “Every one who ever saw your sister speaks of the resemblance,” returned Mildred. “Indeed, my old nurse says my mother was very anxious that I should look like her, and even used to pray that I might. This may, perhaps, account for it.” “It may,—it may,” Richard answered abstractively, pacing up and down the room; then suddenly turning to Mildred he asked: “When were you in Mayfield, and how is my father now? Does he look very old?” Mildred did not tell him when she was in Mayfield, but merely replied that “his father was well, and that for a man nearly sixty-five he was looking remarkably young.” “And the negroes?” said Richard; “though, of course, you know nothing of them, nor of those people who used to live in that gable-roofed house down the hill. Thompson was the name.” Here was a chance for explanation, but Mildred cast it from her by simply answering: “Old Mrs. Thompson lives there yet with her club-footed grandson, Oliver Hawkins, whose mother was probably living when you went away.” Spite of her resolution, Mildred hoped he would ask for _the baby_ next, but he did not. He merely walked faster and faster across the floor, while she sighed mentally: “He has forgotten me, and I will not thrust myself upon his remembrance.” At last the rapid walking ceased, and coming up before her, Mr. Howell said: