Although he lived so near, Oliver had never had more than a passing glance of the inside of the great house on the hill, and now that the first surprise was over, he began to feel a pleasing interest in the idea of entering its spacious halls with Mildred. They would go some day, he said, and he tried to frame a good excuse to give the Judge, who might not be inclined to let them in. Mildred, on the contrary, took no forethought as to what she must say; her wits always came when needed, and, while Oliver was thinking, she fell away to sleep, resting so quietly that she did not hear him go below for the bit of tallow candle necessary to complete his task; neither did she see him, when his work was done, bend over her as she slept. Very gently he arranged her pillow, pushed back the hair which had fallen over her eyes, and then, treading softly on his poor warped feet, he left her room and sought his own, where his grandmother found him sleeping, when at nine o’clock she came home from Widow Simms’s. Mildred’s chamber was visited next, the old lady starting back in much surprise, when, instead of the little figure bending over her bench, she saw the shoes all finished and put away, while Mildred, too, was sleeping,—her lips and hands stained with the berry pie, a part of which lay upon the chair. “It’s Oliver’s doings,” old Hepsy muttered, while thoughts of his crippled feet rose up in time to prevent an explosion of her wrath. She could maltreat little Mildred, who had no mar or blemish about her, but she could not abuse a deformed boy, and she went silently down the stairs, leaving Oliver to his dreams of Heaven, where there were no crippled boys, and Mildred to her dreams of Richard, and the time when she would go to Beechwood, and claim Judge Howell for her sire. [Illustration: Flowers] CHAPTER IV. OLIVER AND MILDRED VISIT BEECHWOOD.