Then in tones almost inaudible he told her how happy she had made his short life, and blessed her as he had often done before. “Mildred, Mildred, dear, dear Mildred,” he kept repeating, “in the better land you will know, perhaps, how much I love you, dear, darling Mildred.” The words were a whisper now, and no one heard them save Mildred and Lawrence, who, passed his arm around his bride and thus encouraged her to sit there while the pulse grew each moment fainter and the blue eyes dimmer with the films of coming death. “Haven’t you a word for me?” asked Hepsy, hobbling to his side, but his ear was deaf to her and his eyes saw nothing save the starry orbs on which they were so intently fastened. “Mildred, Mildred, on the banks of the beautiful river I shall find again the little girl who made my boyhood so happy, and it will not be wicked to tell how much I love her,—Milly, Milly, Milly.” They were the last words he ever spoke, and when Lawrence Thornton lifted the bright head which had bent over the thin, wasted face, Richard Howell, said to those around him: “Oliver is dead.” Yes, he was dead, and all the next day the villagers came in to look at him and to steal a glance at Mildred, who could not be persuaded to leave him until the sun went down, when she was taken away by Lawrence and her father. Poor Milly, her bridal robes, were exchanged for the mourning garb, for she would have it so, and when the third day came she sat with Hepsy close to the narrow coffin, where slept the one she had loved with all a sister’s fondness. She it was who had arranged him for the grave, taking care that none save herself and Lawrence should see the poor twisted feet which during later years he had kept carefully hidden from view. Hers were the last lips which touched his,—hers the last tears which dropped upon his face before they closed the coffin and shut him out from the sunlight and the air. It was a lovely, secluded spot which they chose for Oliver’s grave, and when the first sunset light was falling upon it Lawrence Thornton told his wife how the dead man had loved her with more than a brother’s love, and how the night before he died he had confessed the whole by way of an atonement. “Poor, poor Olly!” sobbed Mildred. “I never dreamed of that,” and her tears fell like rain upon the damp, moist earth above him. Very tenderly Lawrence led her away, and taking her home endeavored to soothe her grief, as did the entire household, even to little Edith, who, climbing into her lap, told her “not to ty, for Oller was in heaven with mamma and the baby, and his feet were all straight now.” Gradually the caresses and endearments lavished upon her by every one had their effect, and Mildred became again like her former self, though she could never forget the patient, generous boy, who had shared her every joy and sorrow, and often in her sleep Lawrence heard her murmur: “Poor dear Oliver. He died for me.”