Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

"You do look beautiful," Eunice said, standing back to admire Ethelyn, when at last she was dressed. "I have thought Melinda Jones handsome, but she can't hold a candle to you, nor nobody else I ever seen, except Miss Judge Miller, in Camden. She do act some like you, with her gown dragglin' behind her half a yard."

Thus flattered and complimented, Ethelyn shook out her skirts, which "draggled half a yard behind," and went downstairs to where Mrs. Jones sat working on Timothy's shirt, and Melinda was crocheting, while Mrs. Markham, senior, clean and neat, and stiff in her starched, purple calico, sat putting a patch on a fearfully large hole in the knee of Andy's pants. As Ethelyn swept into the room there fell a hush upon the inmates, and Mrs. Jones was almost guilty of an exclamation of surprise. She had expected something fine, she said--something different from the Olney quality--but she was not prepared for anything as grand and queenly as Ethelyn, when she sailed into the room, with her embroidered handkerchief held so gracefully in her hands, and in response to Mrs. Markham's introduction, bowed so very low, and slowly, too, her lips scarcely moving at all, and her eyes bent on the ground. Mrs. Jones actually ran the needle she was sewing with under her thumb in her sudden start, while Melinda's crocheting dropped into her lap. She, too, was surprised, though not as much as her mother. She, like Eunice, had seen Mrs. Judge Miller, from New York, whose bridal trousseau was imported from Paris, and whose wardrobe was the wonder of Camden. And Ethelyn was very much like her, only younger and prettier.

"Very pretty," Melinda thought, while Mrs. Jones fell to comparing her, mentally, with the deceased Abigail; wondering how Richard, if he had ever loved the one, could have fancied the other, they were so unlike.

Of course, the mother's heart gave to Abigail the preference for all that was good and womanly, and worthy of Richard Markham; but Ethelyn bore off the palm for style, and beauty, too.

"Handsome as a doll, but awfully proud," Mrs. Jones decided, during the interval in which she squeezed her wounded thumb, and got the needle again in motion upon Timothy's shirt-sleeve.

Ethelyn was not greatly disappointed in Mrs. Jones and her daughter; the mother especially was much like what she had imagined her to be, while Melinda was rather prettier--rather more like the Chicopee girls than she expected. There was a look on her face like Susie Granger, and the kindly expression of her black eyes made Ethelyn excuse her for wearing a magenta bow, while her cheeks were something the same hue. They were very stiff at first, Mrs. Jones saying nothing at all, and Melinda only venturing upon common-place inquiries--as to how Ethelyn bore her journey, if she was ever in that part of the country before, and how she thought she should like the West. This last question Ethelyn could not answer directly.

"It was very different from New England," she said, "but she was prepared for that, and hoped she should not get very homesick during the few weeks which would elapse before she went to Washington."

At this point Mrs. Markham stopped her patching and looked inquiringly at Ethelyn. It was the first she had heard about Ethelyn's going to Washington; indeed, she had understood that Richard's wife was to keep her company during the winter, a prospect which since Ethelyn's arrival had not looked so pleasing to her as it did before. How in the world they should get on together without Richard, she did not know, and if she consulted merely her own comfort she would have bidden Ethelyn go. But there were other things to be considered--there was the great expense it would be for Richard to have his wife with him. Heretofore he had saved a good share of his salary, but with Ethelyn it would be money out of his pocket all the time; besides that, there were reasons why it was not proper for Ethelyn to go; her best place was at home.

Thus reasoned Mrs. Markham, and when next her needle resumed its work on Andy's patch, Ethelyn's fate with regard to Washington was decided, for as thought the mother on that point, so eventually would think the son, who deferred so much to her judgment. He came in after a little, looking so well and handsome that Ethelyn felt proud of him, and had he then laid his hand upon her shoulder, or put his arm around her waist, as he sometimes did when they were alone, she would not have shaken it off, as was her usual custom. Indeed, such is the perversity of human nature, and so many contradictions are there in it, that Ethelyn rather wished he would pay her some little attention. She could not forget Abigail, with Abigail's mother and sister sitting there before her, and she wanted them to see how fond her husband was of her, hoping thus to prove how impossible it was that Abigail could ever have been to him what she was. But Richard was shy in the presence of others, and would sooner have put his arm around Melinda than around his wife, for fear he should be thought silly. He was very proud of her, though, and felt a thrill of satisfaction in seeing how superior, both in look and manner, she was to Melinda Jones, whose buxom, healthy face grew almost coarse and homely from comparison with Ethelyn's.

As Ethelyn's toilet had occupied some time, it was five when she made her appearance in the parlor, consequently she had not long to wait ere the announcement of supper broke up the tediousness she endured from that first call, or visit. The waffles and the gingerbread were all they had promised to be, and the supper passed off quietly, with the exception of a mishap of poor, awkward Andy, who tipped his plate of hot cakes and honey into his lap, and then in his sudden spring backward, threw a part of the plate's contents upon Ethelyn's shining silk. This was the direst calamity of all, and sent poor Andy from the table so heart-broken and disconsolate that he did not return again, and Eunice found him sitting on the wood-house steps, wiping away with his coat-sleeve the great tears which rolled down his womanish face.