Those poor feet! How Mildred loved them then! How she pitied and caressed them, holding them carefully in her lap, and dropping tears upon them, as she thought of the weary way they had come to bring her this great joy,—this joy too good to be believed until Oliver related every particular, beginning with the time when Lawrence first came back to Beechwood. He did not, however, tell her how, day and night, until his own brain grew dizzy, he had sung to the maniac of the maid with the nut-brown hair, nor did he tell her of anything that he had done, except to overhear what Geraldine had said; but Mildred could guess it all,—could understand just how noble and self-denying he had been, and the blessings she breathed upon him came from a sincere heart. “Oh, Olly, darling Olly,” she said, still caressing his wounded feet, “the news is too good to be true. I dare not hope again lest I be cruelly disappointed, and I could not bear another shock. I have suffered so much that my heart is almost numb; and though you tell me I am free to marry Lawrence, I’m afraid there’s some mistake, and that I am his sister Helen’s daughter after all. If I am not, Olly, who am I? Who was my mother?—where is she now? and where is my father?” There were tears in Mildred’s eyes,—once they choked her utterance as she said these last words, which, nevertheless, were distinctly heard in the adjoining room where Richard Howell sat, his face as white as ashes, his eyes unnaturally bright, and a compressed look about the mouth as if he had received some dreadful shock,—something which shook his heartstrings as they never were shaken before. He was reading by his window when Mildred met Oliver in the hall, and through the open door he heard distinctly the name “Mildred, dear Mildred!” and heard the girl he knew as Minnie answer to that name. Then the lettered page before him was one solid blur, the room around him was enveloped in darkness, and with his hearing quickened he sat like a block of stone listening, listening, listening, till every uncertainty was swept away, and from the depths of his inmost soul came heaving up “_My_ child! _my_ Mildred!” But though his heart uttered the words his lips gave forth no sound, and he sat there immovable, while the great drops of perspiration trickled down his face and fell upon his nerveless hands, folded so helplessly together. Then he attempted to rise, but as often sank back exhausted, for the shock had deprived him of his strength and made him weak as a little child. But when Mildred asked, “Where is my father now?” he rose with wondrous effort, and tottering to her door, stood gazing at her with a look in which the tender love of eighteen years was all embodied. Oliver saw him first, for Mildred’s back was toward him, and to her he softly whispered, “Turn your head, Milly. There’s some one at the door.”