r-like to have you give word to stop the suit."

"You will have to go to Squire Clamp," was the reply. "I don't presume
to dictate to my lawyer, but shall let him do what he thinks best. You
haven't been to him, I conclude? I don't think he will be
unreasonable."

Mr. Hardwick looked steadily at her.

"Wer-well, Mrs. Kinloch," said he, slowly, "I th-think I
understand. Ef I don't, it isn't because you don't mum-make the matter
plain. I sha'n't go to Squire Clamp till I have the mum-money, all of
it. I hope no a-a-enemy of yourn will be so hard to y-you as my
friends are to me."

With singular command over her tongue and temper, Mrs. Kinloch
contented herself with hoping that he would find no difficulty in
arranging matters with the lawyer, bade him good-morning, civilly, and
shut the door behind him. But when he was gone, her anger, kept so
well under control before, burst forth.

"Stuttering old fool!" she exclaimed, "to come here to badger me!--to
throw up to me the wood he cut, or the apples he brought me!--as
though Mr. Kinloch hadn't paid that ten times over! He'll find how it
is before long."

"What's the matter?" asked Mildred, meeting her step-mother in the
hall, and noticing her flushed cheek, her swelling veins, and
contorted brows.

"Why, nothing, but a talk with Uncle Ralph, who has been rather
saucy."

"Saucy? Uncle Ralph saucy? Why, he is the most kindly man in the
world,--sometimes hasty, but always well-mannered. I don't see how he
could be saucy."

"I advise you not to stand up for him against your mother."

"I shouldn't defend him in anything wrong; but I think there must be
some misunderstanding."

"He is like Mark, I suppose, always perfect in your eyes."

This was the first time since Mr. Kinloch's death that the step-mother
had ever alluded to the fondness which had existed between Mark and
Mildred as school-children, and her eyes were bent upon the girl
eagerly. It was as though she had knocked at the door of her heart,
and waited for its opening to look into the secret recesses. A quick
flush suffused Mildred's face and neck.

"You are unkind, mother," she said; for the glance was sharper than
the words; and then, bursting into tears, she went to her room.

"So it has come to this!" said Mrs. Kinloch to herself. "Well, I did
not begin at all too soon."

She walked through the hall to the back piazza. She heard voices from
beyond the shrubbery that bordered the grass-plot wher