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Updated: June 22, 2025
She did not notice Richard, or seem to know that she was elsewhere than in Chicopee, back in the old home, and Richard's pulse throbbed quickly as he saw the flush come over Ethie's face, and the look of pain creep into her eyes, when a voice broke the illusion and told her she was still in Olney, with him and the mother-in-law leaning over the bed-rail saying, "Speak to her, Richard."
That personage, too, had had her chicken wing out in the woodshed, and, knowing nothing of Ethie's grievances, had mounted into Richard's lap, where she lay, slowly blinking and occasionally purring a little, as Richard now and then passed his hand over her soft fur. "Now tell us: Why did Ethelyn go away? that is, what reason did she give?" It was Mrs. Dr.
"It was Daisy's, you know," he said to Andy, who, at his side, was not looking at the ring, but beyond it, to the two letters, his own and Richard's, both of which he seized with a low cry, for he, too, was sure of Ethie's flight.
This was his theory; but when, as the twilight deepened on the Chicopee hills, and the lamps were lighted in Aunt Barbara's parlors, and old Captain Markham began to wonder "why the plague the folks did not come," as he stalked up and down the piazza in all the pride and pomposity of one who felt himself to all intents and purposes the village aristocrat, and when the mysterious door of Ethie's room, which had been closed so long, was opened, and the bridegroom told that he might go in, he started in surprise at the beautiful tableau presented to his view as he stepped across the threshold.
Aunt Barbara had stayed at home from choice, sending her niece in charge of Susie Granger's mother; but the long walk home, after the exercises were over, the lingering, loitering walk across the causeway, where the fog was riding so damply, the stopping on the bridge, and looking down into the deep, dark water, where the stars were reflected so brightly, the slow climbing of the depot hill, and the long talk by the gate beneath the elms, whose long arms began to drop great drops of dew on Ethie's head ere the interview was ended all this had been experienced with Frank, whose arm was around the young girl's waist, and whose hand was clasping hers, as with boyish pride and a laughable effort to seem manly, he talked of "our engagement," and even leaped forward in fancy to the time "when we are married."
To Richard himself she had said that she presumed that his mother's ways were not like Ethie's old people were different from young ones the world had improved since their day, and instead of trying to bring young folks altogether to their modes of thinking, it was well for both to yield something. That was the third time Richard had heard his mother's ways alluded to; first by Mrs.
Her house was not hard to clean, and the chambers were soon done, except Ethie's own room, where Aunt Barbara lingered longest, turning the pretty ingrain carpet the brightest side up, rubbing the furniture with polish, putting a bit of paint upon the window sills where it was getting worn, and once revolving the propriety of hanging new paper upon the wall.
The virgin queen of England was never more stony and inexorable with regard to the unfortunate Mary than was Richard toward his wife, and the expression of his face froze all the better emotions rising in Ethie's heart, as she felt that in a measure she was reaping a just retribution for her long deception.
Once down near Washington Square, as she was hurrying toward a group of children, in the center of which stood a figure much like Ethie's, a tall man in the blue uniform accosted her, inquiring into her reasons for wandering about so constantly.
And the good woman groaned over this proof of depravity as she questioned her visitor further with regard to Ethie's departures from duty.
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