“I guess I shall be dead then,” he said, “but there’s one thing you could do now, if you would. I don’t mind it in other folks, but somehow it always hurts me when _you_ call me _Clubs_. I can’t help my bad-shaped feet, and I don’t cry about it as I used to do, nor pray that God would turn them back again, for I know He won’t. I must walk backwards all my life, but, when I get to Heaven, there won’t be any bad boys there to plague me and call me _Reel-foot_ or _Clubs_! Mother never did; and almost the first thing I remember of her she was kissing my poor crippled feet and dropping tears upon them!” Mildred forgot to eat her berry pie; forgot her aching head,—forgot everything in her desire to comfort the boy, who, for the first time in his life, had, in her presence, murmured at his misfortune. “I’ll never call you Clubs again,” she said, folding her arms around his neck. “I love your crooked feet; I love every speck of you, Oliver, and, if I could, I’d give you my feet, though they ain’t much handsomer than yours, they are so big!” and she stuck up a short, fat foot, which, to Oliver, seemed the prettiest he had ever seen. “No, Milly,” he said, “I’d rather be the deformed one. I want you to grow up handsome, as I most know you will!” and, resuming his task, he looked proudly at the bright little face, which bade fair to be wondrously beautiful. Mildred did not like to work if she could help it, and, climbing upon the bed, she lay there while Oliver stitched on industriously. But her thoughts were very busy, for she was thinking of the mysterious Richard, wondering if he were really dead, and if he ever had thought of her when afar on the Southern seas. Then, as she remembered having heard that his portrait hung in the drawing-room at Beechwood, she felt a strong desire to see it; and why couldn’t she? Wasn’t she going up there, some day, to ask the Judge if he were not her father? Yes, she was! and so she said again to Oliver, telling him how she meant to be real smart for ever so long, till his grandmother was good-natured and would let her go. She would wear her best calico gown and dimity pantalets, while Oliver should carry his grandfather’s cane, by way of imitating the Judge, who might thus be more impressed with a sense of his greatness.