“Why will she torture me so?” he cried. “Why does she come to me day after day with her bright face, and her words of love which sound so much like mockery, and yet ’tis far better thus than to have her know my wicked secret. She would hate me then,—would loathe me in my deformity just as I loathe myself. Oh, why didn’t I die years ago, when we were children together, and I had not learned what it was to be a cripple!” He held up in the sunlight the feet which his dead mother used to pity and kiss,—he turned them round,—took them in his hands, and while his tears dropped fast upon them, he whispered mournfully: “This is the curse which stands between me and Mildred Howell. Were it not for this, I would have won her love ere Lawrence Thornton came with his handsome face and pleasant ways; but it cannot be. She will be his bride, and he will cherish her long years after the grass is growing green over poor, forgotten Clubs!” There was a light step on the stairs; Mildred was coming up; and hastily covering his feet, he forced a smile upon his face, and handing her the letter, said: “It’s just as I expected. You’ll consent, of course?” “Yes, but I shall write ever so much before I get to that, just to tantalize him,” returned Mildred, adding that she’d bring her answer down for Oliver to see if it would do! A half-stifled moan escaped Oliver’s lips, but Mildred did not hear it, and she went dancing down the stairs singing to herself: “Never morning smiled so gayly, Never sky such radiance wore, Never passed into the sunshine Such a merry queen before.” “A body’d s’pose you’d nothing to do but to sing and dance and trample on my corns,” growled Hepsy, still busy with her peas and casting a rueful glance at her foot, encased in a most wonderful shoe of her own manufacture. “I am sorry, Aunt Hepsy,” said Mildred, “but your feet are always in the way,” and singing of the “sunshine,” and the “merry queen of May,” she went back to Beechwood, where a visitor was waiting for her, Mr. Robert Thornton! He had followed Geraldine’s instructions implicitly, and simultaneously with the Mayfield mail-bag he entered the hotel where the Post-Office was kept. Seating himself in the sitting-room opposite, he watched the people as they came in for their evening papers, until, at last, looking from the window, he caught sight of the Judge and Finn. Moving back a little, so as not to be observed, he saw the former take the letter which he knew had been written by his son,—saw, too, the expression of the Judge’s face as he glanced at the superscription, and then handed it to Finn, bidding him hurry home, and saying he should not return for two hours or more.