“Oh, it was diffidence, Millie.  He would have no motive in hiding the truth from us.  I can see that he is both fascinated by you and afraid of you—­poor fellow!”

“A few weeks in the cornfield and a few smiles from the girls hereabouts will banish all his nonsense concerning me.  I don’t give him a thought except that his absurd feelings annoy me.  Oh, mamma, you understand me.  What he would like to offer is such a grotesque parody on that which I hoped for, on what I imagined I possessed, that it makes me sick.  Oh, oh!” she sobbed, “I must give it all up.  Mr. Arnold acts as if I were dead:  and practically I am to him, although he may sigh and mope a little, perhaps.  There, I’m wronging him; I know I wrong him.  How can I forget his white, deathlike face and look of mortal pain.  Oh that he had this young fellow’s muscle and courage!  I do not care for his money; I would be content with him in one bare room.  But as it is I fear, I fear;” and the poor child buried her face in her mother’s lap, and cried away some of her weight of foreboding.

“Millie, darling,” faltered her mother, “God knows I’d shield your heart with my own if I could, but I don’t know how to help you.  You are too much like me.  Your love is your life, and you can’t stop loving just because it would be wise and thrifty to do so.  I think of you almost as much as I do of Martin, and I daily pray the merciful Saviour, who was ’tempted in all points like as we are,’ to sustain and comfort you.  I don’t see how I can help you in any other way, for my own heart shows me just how you suffer.”

“There, little mother,” said Mildred, raising her head and wiping her eyes, “I’ve had my cry, and feel the better for it.  I’m going to help you and papa and be brave.  I’m glad I’m like you.  I’m glad I’m a true Southern girl, and that I can love as you loved; and I would despise myself if I could invest my heart and reinvest it like so much stock.  Such a woman is cold-blooded and unnatural, and you are the dearest little mother and wife that ever breathed.”

“Oh, Millie, Millie, if I had only foreseen and guarded against this evil day!”

“Come, dear mamma, don’t always be blaming yourself for what you did not foresee.  You are eager to do your best now, and that is all God or man can ask of us.  These clouds will pass away some time, and then the sunshine will be all the brighter.”

The next few days of waiting and uncertainty were a severer ordeal to Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred than ever.  Mr. Jocelyn, bent on gaining time, kept putting them off.  His new duties upon which he had entered, he wrote, left him only the evening hours for his quest of rooms, and he had not succeeded in finding any that were suitable.  Thus they expected something definite by every mail, but each day brought renewed disappointment.  At last Mildred wrote that she would come down herself if he did not decide upon something at once.