One day the doctor returned from paying several visits to his poor patients in the village, more than usually depressed. That recalled to Milly's memory what she had heard, and what she herself faintly remembered, of his former gloomy fits, and she hastened to bring out her lessons at once, to divert his mind from whatever troubled him. "No, we won't have the books this afternoon," said the doctor, when he saw them. "I want to talk to you, Milly. You are only a little girl, I know, but you are a sensible one, and I have learned a great many things of you." He kissed her as he spoke, and she opened her large blue eyes to wonder what it was she could have taught such a clever man as Dr. Mansfield. "Would you like me to tell you something of myself?" he continued. "Something of when I was young?" "O, yes, that I should!" answered Milly joyously. And noticing the doctor's saddened look, she added, "But not if—if it makes you feel sorry." "I think, perhaps, it will do me good," he said, trying to smile. "I will begin at the beginning. I was an only child, Milly, and a spoiled one, I think. I was always passionate, and no one ever dared to cross my will, until my cousin Edgar came to live with us. My mother was dead then, and I soon began to fancy that my father loved this orphan cousin better than myself, and, yielding to this feeling, I grew to hate Edgar—to hate him, until at last, when we had both grown up, I one day struck him down, saying I wished he might die at my feet. "Milly, it was the last time I saw my cousin. For a long time I thought he was dead, and I lived in France until my father died, when I ventured to return, for I was his heir and many things needed to be looked after, and then I heard that my cousin had gone to India, and married out there." "Didn't you feel very glad then?" asked Milly. "I should, if I had felt quite sure about it; but I cannot feel sure, and then the thought comes,—If he died of that blow I gave him! O Milly, you cannot think the misery this has caused me." The little girl sat and looked pityingly up at him. "Couldn't you write a letter to India—a very nice kind letter, telling your cousin how sorry you feel? Who told you he'd gone to India?" she asked. That he could not remember; but he had all the particulars down in writing, with the address of the person he hoped was his cousin, and he seemed to be pondering over what Milly had said. He had once or twice thought of writing and ascertaining for himself whether his cousin still lived. But he had shrunk from destroying the slender thread of hope that it might be him, by hearing that it was not. But until lately there had also been another feeling at work deterring him from making any inquiries, and that was his pride.