“Well, sir, she didn’t, but shrank back in the corner, and snivelled out, ‘I carn’t, I carn’t. I’m afraid of dead folks. I’d rather stay here.’ I suppose I said some savage things before I started after Milly, who was flying over the fields just as you have seen your hat fly in a strong March wind. When I got to the tree I found her with her arms around your neck, and as hard a wretch as I am, I shed tears to see again on her face that look, as if her heart were broken. When we reached home with you, we found Lilian crying in her room, and she never so much as lifted her finger, while Mildred stood bravely by, and once, Thornton, she put her lips to yours and blew her breath into your lungs, until her cheeks stuck out like two globe lamps. I think that did the business, for you soon showed signs of life, and then Mildred cried out for joy while Lilian, who heard her, fancied you were dead, and wanted somebody to stay with her, because she was afraid of ghosts. Just as though you wouldn’t have enough to do seeing what kind of a place you’d got into, without appearing to her? When the danger was all over, and you were asleep, Mildred, of course, wanted to go to Clubs, so she asked Lilian to stay with you, but she had to bring her in by force, for Lilian said she was afraid of the dark. I was in the next room and heard the whole performance. I heard you, too, make a fool of yourself, when you woke up and Lilian gave you her version of the story. Of course, I was considerably riled up, for Mildred is the very apple of my eye. Lawrence, do you love Lilian Veille?” Scarcely an hour before, Oliver had said to Lawrence, “Do you love Mildred Howell?” and now the Judge asked, “Do you love Lilian Veille?” To the first Lawrence had answered “Yes.” He could answer the same to the last, for he did love Lilian, though not as he loved Mildred, and so he said yes, asking in a faltering voice: “What he was expected to infer from all he had heard?” “Infer?” repeated the Judge. “Good thunder, you ain’t to infer anything! You are to take it for gospel truth. Mildred _does_ love somebody, as that blabbing Lilian said she did, and the two first letters of his name are LAWRENCE THORNTON! But what the mischief, boy; are you sorry to know that the queen of all the girls that ever was born, or ever will be, is in love with you?” he asked, as Lawrence sprang to his feet, and walked rapidly up and down the long piazza. “Sorry,—no; but glad; so glad; and may I talk with her to-night?” answered Lawrence, forgetting his father’s wrath, which was sure to fall upon him,—forgetting Lilian,—forgetting everything, save the fact that Mildred Howell loved him.