“Now then,” said Mildred, spying the drawing-room door ajar, “we’ll have a good time by ourselves,” and taking Oliver’s hand, she walked boldly into the parlor, where the family portraits were hanging. At first her eye was perfectly dazzled with the elegance of which she had never dreamed, but as she became somewhat accustomed to it, she began to look about and make her observations. “Isn’t this glorious, though! Wouldn’t I like to live here!” and she set her little foot hard down upon the velvet carpet. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” said Oliver in his meekest tone, and Mildred turned just in time to see him bow to what he fancied to be a beautiful young lady smiling down upon them from a gilded frame. “The portraits! the portraits!” she cried, clapping her hands together, and, in an instant, she stood face to face with Mildred Howell, of the “starry eyes and nut-brown hair.” But why should that picture affect little Mildred so strangely, causing her to hold her breath and gaze up at it with childish awe. It was very, very beautiful, and hundreds had admired its girlish loveliness; but to Mildred it brought another feeling than that of admiration,—a feeling as if that face had looked at her many a time from the old, cracked glass at home. “Oliver,” she said, “what is it about the lady? Who is she like, or where have I seen her before?” Oliver was quite as perplexed as herself; for the features of Mildred Howell seemed familiar even to him. He had somewhere seen their semblance, but he did not think of looking for it in the little girl, whose face grew each moment more and more like the one upon the canvas. And not like that alone, but also like the portrait beyond,—the portrait of Richard Howell. Mildred had not noticed this yet, though the mild, dark eyes seemed watching her every moment, just as another pair of living eyes were watching her from the door. Mildred’s scream of joy had penetrated to the ears of the sleeping Judge, rousing him from his after-dinner nap, and causing him to listen again for the voice which sounded like an echo from the past. The cry was not repeated, but through the open door he heard distinctly the childish voice, and shaking off his drowsiness he started to see who the intruders could be.