United States or Sweden ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"We can do nothing but wait and hope," Richard wrote in reply, but Aunt Barbara added to it, "we can pray;" and so all through the autumn, when the soft, hazy days which Ethie had loved so well kept the lost one forever in mind, Aunt Barbara waited and hoped, and prayed and watched for Ethie's coming home, feeling always a sensation of expectancy when the Western whistle sounded and the Western train went thundering through the town; and when the hack came up from the depot and did not stop at her door, she said to herself, "She would walk up, maybe," and then waiting again she would watch from her window and look far up the quiet street, where the leaves of crimson and gold were lying upon the walk.
Then her eye moved on to where the marriage of Ethelyn Adelaide with Richard Markham, of Iowa, had been recorded; and then she turned to the last of "Deaths," wondering if, unseen by her, Ethie's name had been added to the list. The last name visible to mortal eye was that of Julia, wife of William Grant, who had died at the age of twenty-five.
Ethie's heart was too full to permit her to reply, and Eunice soon left her alone, reporting downstairs how white and sick she was looking. To Mrs. Markham's credit we record that with a view to please her daughter-in-law, a fire was that afternoon made in the parlor, and Ethelyn solicited to come down, Mrs.
He knew it was a good omen, and on his knees by the bedside, with his face in his hands, he prayed aloud, thanking God for restoring Ethelyn to them, and asking that they might all be taught just how to make her happy. A faint sound between a moan and a sob roused him and, looking up, he saw the great tears rolling down Ethie's cheeks, while her lips moved as if they would speak to him.
He was very indignant, very angry still, for he believed her guilty of planning to meet Frank Van Buren at the party and leave him at home, while his heart beat with keen throbs of pain when he remembered that Ethie's first love was not given to him that she would have gone to her grave more willingly than she went with him to the altar; but he need not have been so harsh with her that was no way to make her love him.
Those were trying days to Richard, who rarely left Ethie's bedside, except when it was absolutely necessary. She was more quiet with him, and would sometimes sleep for hours upon his arm, with one hand clasped in Aunt Barbara's, and the other held by Andy.
Ethie's cheeks were turning crimson, and her pulse throbbing rapidly as, loosing her long, beautiful hair, which of all her girlish beauty remained unimpaired, and putting off her little gaiters, she lay down upon the snowy bed, and pressing her aching head upon the pillows, whispered softly to her other self the Ethelyn Grant she used to know in Chicopee, when a little twelve-year-old girl she fled from the maddened cow and met the tall young man from the West.
No one knew a whisper of Frank Van Buren, for Harry kept his promise well, and no worse motive was ascribed to Ethie's desertion than want of perfect congeniality with her husband. Thus they were not foes, but friends, who welcomed Richard back to Camden, watching him curiously, and wishing so much to ask where Mrs. Markham was.
Aunt Barbara's evident wish to smooth matters irritated her to say more than she might otherwise have done, and she went on: "I know you made exceptions, but if my memory serves me right, your opinion of Ethie's mother-in-law was not very complimentary to that lady. A man has no business to take his wife to live with his mother when he knows how different they are."
Christmas came, and Susie Granger sang of Bethlehem in the old stone church, and other fingers than Ethie's swept the organ keys, and the Christmas tree was set up, and the presents were hung upon the boughs, and the names were called, and Aunt Barbara was there, but the lamb's-wool stockings were at home in the bureau drawer; there was no one to wear them, no one to take them from the tree, if they had been put there; Ethie had not come.
Word Of The Day