The old lady showed signs of relenting at once, and when Mildred threw in a box of black snuff with a bean in it, the victory was won, and she at liberty to join Oliver. He heard her well-known step, but he was not prepared for her white face and swollen eyes, and in much alarm he asked her what had happened. “Oh, Oliver!” she cried, burying her face in the pillow, “it’s all over. I shall never marry Lawrence. I have promised to refuse him, and my heart is aching so hard that I most wish I were dead.” Very wonderingly he looked at her, as in a few words she told him of the exciting scene through which she had been passing since she left him so full of hope. Then laying her head a second time upon the pillow, she cried aloud, while Oliver, too, covering his face with the sheet, wept great burning tears of joy—joy at Mildred’s pain. Poor, poor Oliver; he could not help it, and for one single moment he abandoned himself to the selfishness which whispered that the world would be the brighter and his life the happier if none ever had a better claim to Mildred than himself. “Ain’t you going to comfort me one bit?” came plaintively to his ear, but he did not answer. The fierce struggle between duty and self was not over yet, and Mildred waited in vain for his reply. “Are you crying, too?” she asked, as her ear caught a low, gasping sob. “Yes, you are,” she continued, as removing the sheet she saw the tears on his face. To see Oliver cry was in these days a rare sight to Mildred, and partially forgetting her own sorrow in her grief at having caused him pain, she laid her arm across his neck, and in her sweetest accents said: “Dear, dear Olly, I didn’t think you would feel so badly for me. There—don’t,” and she brushed away the tears which only fell the faster. “I shall get over it, maybe; Judge Howell says I will, and if I don’t I sha’n’t always feel as I do now—I couldn’t and live. I shall be comfortably happy by and by, perhaps, and then if I never marry, you know you and I are to live together. Up at Beechwood, maybe. That is to be mine some day, and you shall have that pleasant chamber looking out upon the town and the mountains beyond. You’ll read to me every morning, while I work for the children of some Dorcas Society, for I shall be a benevolent old maid, I guess. Won’t it be splendid?” and in her desire to comfort Oliver, who, she verily believed, was weeping because she was not going to marry Lawrence Thornton, Mildred half forgot her own grief. Dear Milly! She had yet much to learn of love’s great mystery, and she could not understand how great was the effort with which Oliver dried his tears, and smiling upon her, said: “I trust the time you speak of will never come, for I would far rather Lawrence should do the reading while you work for children with eyes like yours, Milly,” and he smiled pleasantly upon her.