Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

Ethelyn readily guessed the opinion her mother-in-law was forming of her, and could hardly steady her voice sufficiently to answer her questions or repress her tears, which gushed forth the moment Mrs. Markham had left the room, and she was alone with Richard. Poor Richard! it was a novel position in which he found himself--that of mediator between his mother and his wife; but he succeeded very well, soothing and caressing the latter, until when, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the bountiful dinner was ready, he had the pleasure of taking her downstairs, looking very beautiful in her handsome black silk, and the pink coral ornaments Aunt Barbara had given her. There was nothing gaudy about her dress; it was in perfect taste, and very plain too, as she thought, even if it was trimmed with lace and bugles. But she could not help feeling it was out of keeping when James, and John, and Eunice stared so at her, and Mrs. Markham asked her if she hadn't better tie on an apron for fear she might get grease or something on her. With ready alacrity Eunice, who fancied her young mistress looked like a queen, forgetting in her admiration that she had ever thought her proud, ran for her own clean, white apron, which she offered to the lady.

But Ethelyn declined it, saying, "My napkin is all that I shall require."

Mrs. Markham, and Eunice, and Andy glanced at each other. Napkins were a luxury in which Mrs. Markham had never indulged. She knew they were common in almost every family of her acquaintance; but she did not see of what use they were, except to make more washing, and as her standard of things was the standard of thirty years back she was not easily convinced; and even Melinda Jones had failed on the napkin question. Ethelyn had been too much excited to observe their absence the previous night, and she now spoke in all sincerity, never dreaming that there was not such an article in the house. But there was a small square towel of the finest linen, and sacred to the memory of Daisy, who had hemmed it herself and worked her name in the corner. It was lying in the drawer, now, with her white cambric dress, and, at a whispered word from her mistress, Eunice brought it out and laid it in Ethelyn's lap, while Richard's face grew crimson as he began to think that possibly his mother might be a very little behind the times in her household arrangements.

Ethelyn's appetite had improved since the previous night, and she did ample justice to the well-cooked dinner; but her spirits were ruffled again when, on returning to her room an hour or so after dinner, she found it in the same disorderly condition in which she had left it. Ethelyn had never taken charge of her own room, for at Aunt Barbara's Betty had esteemed it a privilege to wait upon her young mistress, while Aunt Van Buren would have been horror-stricken at the idea of any one of her guests making their own bed. Mrs. Markham, on the contrary, could hardly conceive of a lady too fine to do that service herself, and Eunice was not the least to blame for omitting to do what she had never been told was her duty to do. A few words from Richard, however, and the promise of an extra quarter per week made that matter all right, and neither Betty nor Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's trained chambermaid, Mag, had ever entered into the clearing-up process with greater zeal than did Eunice when once she knew that Richard expected it of her. She was naturally kind-hearted, and though Ethelyn's lofty ways annoyed her somewhat, her admiration for the beautiful woman and her elegant wardrobe was unbounded, and she felt a pride in waiting upon her which she would once have thought impossible to feel in anything pertaining to her duties as a servant.

The following morning brought with it the opening of the box where the family presents were; but Ethelyn did not feel as much interest in them now as when they were purchased. She knew how out of place they were, and fully appreciated the puzzled expression on James' face when he saw the blue velvet smoking cap. It did not harmonize with the common clay pipe he always smoked on Sunday, and much less with the coarse cob thing she saw him take from the kitchen mantel that morning just after he left the breakfast table and had donned the blue frock he wore upon the farm. He did not know what the fanciful-tasseled thing was for; but he reflected that Melinda, who had been to boarding school, could enlighten him, and he thanked his pretty sister with a good deal of gentlemanly grace. He was naturally more observing than Richard, and with the same advantages would have polished sooner. Though a little afraid of Ethelyn, there was something in her refined, cultivated manners very pleasing to him, and his soft eyes looked down upon her kindly as he took the cap and carried it to his room, laying it carefully away in the drawer where his Sunday shirts, and collars, and "dancing pumps," and fishing tackle, and paper of chewing tobacco were.

Meanwhile, John, who was even more shy of Ethelyn than James, had been made the recipient of the elegantly embroidered slippers, which presented so marked a contrast to his heavy cowhides, and were three sizes too small for his mammoth feet. Ethelyn saw the discrepancy at once, and the effort it was for John to keep from laughing outright, as he took the dainty things into which he could but little more than thrust his toes.

"You did not know what a Goliath I was, nor what stogies I wore; but I thank you all the same," John said, and with burning blushes Ethelyn turned next to her beautiful Schiller--the exquisite little bust--which Andy, in his simplicity mistook for a big doll, feeling a little affronted that Ethelyn should suppose him childish enough to care for such toys.

But when Richard, who stood looking on, explained to his weak brother what it was, saying that people of cultivation prized such things as these, and that some time he would read to him of the great German poet, Andy felt better, and accepted his big doll with a very good grace.

The coiffure came next, Mrs. Markham saying she was much obliged, and Eunice asking if it was a half-handkerchief, to be worn about the neck.

Taken individually and collectively, the presents were a failure--all but the pretty collar and ribbon-bow, which, as an afterthought, Ethelyn gave to Eunice, whose delight knew no bounds. This was something she could appreciate, while Ethelyn's gifts to the others had been far beyond them, and but for the good feeling they manifested might as well have been withheld. Ethelyn felt this heavily, and it did not tend to lessen the bitter disappointment which had been gnawing in her heart ever since she had reached her Western home. Everything was different from what she had pictured it in her mind--everything but Daisy's face, which, from its black-walnut frame above her piano, seemed to look so lovingly down upon her. It was a sweet, refined face, and the soft eyes of blue were more beautiful than anything Ethelyn had ever seen. She did not wonder that every member of that family looked upon their lost Daisy as the household angel, lowering their voices when they spoke of her, and even retarding their footsteps when they passed near her picture. She did wonder, however, that they were not more like what Daisy would have been, judging from the expression of her face and all Richard had said of her.