CHAPTER VIII.

THE DOCTOR'S STORY.

MILLY had been at Dr. Mansfield's about two years, and every body began to look upon her as his daughter now. The housekeeper had long given up all hope and even desire to get rid of her, so wonderfully had the house been brightened by her presence, that the extra trouble it entailed was no longer thought of. She did not go to school, for there were no schools in this remote fishing village, and to obviate the necessity of her leaving him for this purpose, the doctor taught her himself.

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.

After their quarrel—if he survived it—his cousin had gone away, cutting himself off entirely from all his former friends and acquaintances, and not allowing one to know whither he had gone. Now for Dr. Mansfield, after all that had occurred, to seek him, he felt would be impossible. And yet now that Milly suggested it, he did not put away the suggestion as he had formerly done. Nay, more; he sat and pondered over it, and at last took out the paper containing the name and address of the passenger who had met with Edgar, and the place he had named as his residence.

"You are going to write that letter to India?" said Milly, seeing the yellow discolored paper lying before him.

"I don't know, Milly. My cousin was never gentle nor kind towards me," and his brow grew dark again as he thought of the past.

She crept into his arms and wound her arm about his neck. "Wouldn't it be like Jesus, if you were kind to him?" she whispered.

"What? I don't understand," he said, looking down into the clear blue eyes.

"Why, Jesus came to us when—when—when I don't think the people cared much about Him; but He was kind and gentle just the same."

"I see what you mean, Milly. You think I should write to my cousin, whatever he may be, however he may act. But do you know it is not easy—is not pleasant to do this, especially when you do not know how it will be received?"

Milly nodded. "But Jesus did it for us," she said; "He came when the people were wicked and cruel to Him, and we ought to be like Him—meek and lowly in heart."

Milly had put it before him now in the most convincing manner. He had been striving for some time to follow the example of the Saviour; but he had failed to see before that, this meekness and lowliness—this lowering of his pride—this voluntarily humbling of himself—was included in the service he was seeking to render. But seeing it, he would not now shrink from it, hard as it was.

The next day he wrote to his cousin—wrote as Milly had suggested—a kind, loving epistle, in which the past was referred to with humility and contrition, and a hope expressed that the writer might be forgiven for what he had done in a moment of passion.

There was but a slender chance of its ever reaching the hand for which it was intended, and Dr. Mansfield said this to himself again and again. So many things might have happened during all these years to take his cousin away from the spot where he had first settled, even if he were still alive. And yet the doctor could not help indulging a slight hope that his letter would be responded to. And from that time it seemed as if a weight was lifted from his mind, and a cloud from his brow—a weight that at one time he had thought he must always carry with him as long as he lived.