“Sharper than I s’posed,” he thought, and turning to Lawrence, he whispered: “No use—no use. She sticks like shoemaker’s wax, but I’ll tell you what, when she is getting ready to go to-morrow I’ll call Milly down, on the pretence of seeing her for something, and then you’ll have a chance,” and with this Lawrence was fain to be satisfied. He did not need to go to Oliver for an explanation of his words,—he knew now what they meant,—knew that the beautiful Mildred did care for him, and when he at last laid his head upon his pillow, he could see in the future no cloud to darken his pathway, unless it were his father’s anger, and even that did not seem very formidable. “He will change his mind when he sees how determined I am,” he thought. “Mildred won the crusty Judge’s heart,—she will win his as well. Lilian will shed some tears, I suppose, and Geraldine will scold, but after knowing how Lilian deceived me, I could not marry her, even were there no Mildred ‘with the starry eyes and nut-brown hair.’” He knew that people had applied these terms to his young step-mother, and it was thus that he loved to think of Mildred, whose eyes were as bright as stars and whose hair was a rich nut-brown. He did not care who her parents were, he said, though his mind upon that point was pretty well established, but should he be mistaken, it was all the same. Mildred, as his wife and the adopted daughter of Judge Howell, would be above all reproach, and thus, building pleasant castles of the future, he fell asleep. [Illustration: Flowers] CHAPTER XII. THE PROPOSAL. “Miss Veille,” said the Judge at the breakfast table next morning, “the carriage will be round in just an hour, and as, if you are at all like Milly, you have a thousand and one traps to pick up, you’d better be about it.” “Milly is going to help me. I never could do it alone,” returned Lilian, sipping her coffee very leisurely and lingering in the dining-room to talk with Lawrence, even after breakfast was over. Mildred, however, had gone upstairs, and thither Judge Howell followed, finding her, as he expected, folding up Lilian’s clothes, and placing them in her trunk. “That girl is too lazy to breathe,” he said. “Why don’t she come and help you, when I’ve a particular reason for wishing you to hurry,” and by way of accelerating matters, he crumpled in a heap two of Lilian’s muslin dresses, and ere Mildred could stop him, had jammed them into a band-box, containing the mite of a thing which Lilian called a bonnet. A lace bertha next came under consideration, but Mildred snatched it from him just as he was tucking it away with a pair of India rubbers. “You ruin the things!” she cried. “What’s the matter?” “I’ll tell you, gipsy,” he answered, in a whisper, “I want to see you alone a few minutes before they go off. I tried last night till I sweat, but had to give it up.” “We are alone now,” said Mildred, while the Judge replied: