“Thanks to something, this letter has been two weeks on the road, and as she is tired of looking for an answer by this time, I sha’n’t trouble myself to write,—but what of Richard?—I have not yet seen why he is up there in New Hampshire, chasing after that Hetty, when he ought to have been home weeks ago;” and taking from his pocket another and an unopened letter, he read why his only son and heir of all his vast possessions was in New Hampshire “chasing after Hetty,” as he termed it. Hetty Kirby was a poor relation, whom the Judge’s wife had taken into the family, and treated with the utmost kindness and consideration; on her death-bed she had committed the young girl to her husband’s care, bidding him be kind to Hetty for her sake. In Judge Howell’s crusty heart there was one soft, warm spot,—the memory of his wife and beautiful young daughter, the latter of whom died within a few months after her marriage. _They_ had loved the orphan Hetty, and for their sakes, he had kept her until accident revealed to him the fact that to his son, then little more than a boy, there was no music so sweet as Hetty’s voice,—no light so bright as that which shone in Hetty’s eye. Then the lion was roused, and he turned her from his door, while Richard was threatened with disinheritance if he dared to think again of the humble Hetty. There was no alternative but to submit, for Judge Howell’s word was _law_, and, with a sad farewell to what had been her home so long, Hetty went back to the low-roofed house among the granite hills, where her mother and half-imbecile grandmother were living. Richard, too, returned to college, and from that time not a word had passed between the father and the son concerning the offending Hetty until now, when Richard wrote that she was dead, together with her grandmother,—that news of her illness had been forwarded to him, and immediately after leaving college, in July, he had hastened to New Hampshire, and staid by her until she died. “You can curse me for it if you choose,” he said, “but it will not make the matter better. I loved Hetty Kirby: while living, I love her memory now that she is dead; and in that little grave beneath the hill I have buried my heart forever.” The letter closed by saying that Richard would possibly be home that night, and he asked that the carriage might be in waiting at the depot. The news of Hetty’s death kept the Judge silent for a moment, while his heart gave one great throb as he thought of the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl, who had so often ministered to his comfort.