Mark turned his head, and through the window of the house saw the retreating figure of Mildred.  He bounded across the yard, opened the door without knocking, and rushed into the house.  She had vanished:  no one was visible but Mrs. Alford, who was cutting up golden pumpkins in long coils to dry.

“Come, Milly,” said the good woman, “’ta’n’t no use; he saw ye.”

And Mildred appeared, coming slowly out of the buttery.

“Ye see, Mildred felt a little hurt about a letter; but I knew there was some mistake; so I wa’n’t a-goin’ to hev ye go off ’thout some explanation.”

“A letter?—­explanation?” said Mark, thoroughly bewildered.

“Here it is,” said Mildred, taking a letter from her pocket, still looking down.  Mark hastily took and opened it.  The envelope bore Mildred’s address in a hand not unlike his own; the inclosure was a letter from Mildred to himself, which he now saw for the first time.

“Mildred,” said he, holding out his hands, “could you doubt me?”

She covered her face with her apron, but stood irresolute.  He looked again at the letter.

“Why, the clumsy trick, Mildred!  This post-office stamp, ‘New York,’ is not genuine.  Just look! it is a palpable cheat, an imitation made with a pen.  The color did not spread, you see, as ink mixed with oil does.  This letter never left this village.  I never saw it before,—­could not have seen it.  Do you doubt me now, dear Mildred?”

Even if the evidence had been less convincing, the earnest, heartfelt tone, the pleading look and gesture, would have satisfied a much more exacting woman.  She sprang towards her lover, and flung her arms about his neck.  The pent-up feeling of days and weeks rushed over her like a flood, and the presence of Mrs. Alford was forgotten.

Mrs. Alford, it would seem, suddenly thought of something; for, gathering herself up, she walked off as fast as the laws of gravitation allowed, exclaiming,—­“There!  I never did see!  Sech hens!  Allus a-flyin’ into the kitchen.  I wonder now who left that are door open.”

The frightened cackle of the hens, the rattling of pots and pans by the assiduous housewife in the kitchen, were unheeded by the lovers, “emparadised in one another’s arms.”  The conversation took too wide a range and embraced too many trivial details to be set down here.  Only this I may say:  they both believed, (as every enamored couple believes,) that, though other people might cherish the properest affection for each other, yet no man or woman ever did or could experience such intense and all-pervading emotion as now throbbed in their breasts,—­in fact, that they had been created to exemplify the passion, which, before, poets had only imagined.  Simple children! they had only found out what hearts are made for!

CHAPTER XV.