“The hateful nigger!” exclaimed Lilian. “What business had he to listen and then to blab? If there’s anything I hate it’s a tattler!” “Then why don’t you quit it yourself?” asked Mildred, jerking away from the hand which was trying to smooth the braid of thirty strands. “What an awful temper you have got, Milly!” said Lilian, seating herself very composedly by the window, and looking out upon the lawn. “I should suppose you’d try to control it this hot day. I’m almost melted now.” And thus showing how little she really cared for her foolish thoughtlessness, Lilian fanned herself complacently, wondering why Mildred should feel so badly if Lawrence did know. “Gipsy,” called the Judge from the lower hall, “supper is on the table. Come down.” In the present condition of her face Mildred would not for the world show herself to Lawrence Thornton, and she said to Lilian: “You make some excuse for me, won’t you?” “I’ll tell them you’re mad,” returned Lilian, and she did, adding by way of explanation: “Milly told me this morning that she was in love, I told Lawrence, Finn overheard me, and like a meddlesome fellow as he is, repeated it to Mildred, who is as spunky about it as you please.” “Mildred in love!” repeated the Judge. “Who in thunder is she in love with?” In a different form Lawrence had asked himself that same question many a time within the last hour; but not caring to hear the subject discussed, he adroitly turned the conversation to other topics, and Mildred soon heard them talking pleasantly together, while Lilian’s merry laughter told that her mind at least was quite at ease. Lilian could not be unhappy long, and was now quite delighted to find herself the sole object of attraction to three of the male species. Supper being over, she led the way to the back piazza, where, sitting close to Lawrence, she rattled on in her simple, childish way, never dreaming how, while seeming to listen, each of her auditors was thinking of Mildred and wishing she was there. For a time Oliver lingered, hoping Mildred would join them again, but as she did not, he at last took his leave. From her window Mildred saw him going down the Cold Spring path, and with a restless desire to know if he thought she had acted very foolishly, she stole out of the back way, and, taking a circuitous route to avoid observation, reached the gable-roof and knocked at the door of Oliver’s room just after he had entered it. “May I come in?” she said. “Certainly,” he answered. “You are always welcome here.” And he pushed toward her the stool on which she sat, but pushed it too far from himself to suit Mildred’s ideas. She could not remember that she was no longer the little girl who used to lavish so many sisterly caresses upon the boy Oliver; neither did she reflect that she was now a young lady of seventeen, and he a man of twenty-one, possessing a man’s heart, even though the casket which enshrined that heart was blighted and deformed.