Heriot's Choice

How strange that Dr. Heriot should be coming to see her, and on private business, too! It seemed so odd of Arnold to send him; and yet it was pleasant to feel that she was to be consulted and her opinion respected. 'Mildred, who loves to help everybody, must find some way of helping poor Heriot,' had been her brother's concluding words.

Mildred Lambert's house was one of those modest suburban residences lying far back on a broad sunny road bordering on Clapham Common; but on a May afternoon even Laurel Cottage, unpretentious as it was, was not devoid of attractions, with its trimly cut lawn and clump of sweet-scented lilac and yellow drooping laburnum, stretching out long fingers of gold in the sunshine.

Mildred was sitting alone in her little drawing-room, ostensibly sorting her papers, but in reality falling into an occasional reverie, lulled by the sunshine and the sil