Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Things did strike me a little odd at Ethie's, and I don't well see how she could be very happy there. Mrs. Markham is queer--the queerest woman, if I must say it, that I ever saw, though I guess there's a good many like her up in Vermont, where she was raised, and if the truth was known, right here in Chicopee, too; and I wouldn't wonder if there were some queer ones in Boston. The place don't make the difference; it's the way the folks act."

This she said in defense of the West generally. There were quite as nice people there as anywhere, and she believed Mrs. Markham meant to be kind to Ethie; surely Richard did, only he did not understand her. It was very wrong to lock her up, and then it was wrong in Ethie to marry him, feeling as she did. "It was all wrong every way, but the heaviest punishment for the wrong had fallen on poor Ethie, gone, nobody knew where."

It was not in nature for Aunt Barbara to say so much without crying, and her tears were dropping fast into her motherly lap, where Tabby was now lying. Mrs. Van Buren was greatly irritated that her sister did not render her more assistance, and as a failure in that quarter called for greater exertions on her own part, she returned again to the charge, and wound up with sweeping denunciations against the whole Markham family.

"The idea of taking a young girl there, and trying to bend her to your ways of thinking--to debar her from all the refinements to which she had been accustomed, and give her for associates an ignorant mother-in-law and a half-witted brother."

Richard had borne a great deal from Mrs. Van Buren, and borne it patiently, too, as something which he deserved. He had seen himself torn to atoms, until he would never have recognized any one of the dissected members as parts of the Honorable Judge he once thought himself to be. He had heard his mother and her "ways" denounced as utterly repugnant to any person of decency, while James and John, under the head of "other vulgar appendages to the husband," had had a share in the general sifting down, and through it all he had kept quiet, with only an occasional demur or explanation; but when it came to Andy, the great, honest, true-hearted Andy, he could bear it no longer, and the Bigelow blood succumbed to the fiery gleam in Richard's eyes as he started to his feet, exclaiming:

"Mrs. Van Buren, you must stop, for were you a hundred times a woman, I would not listen to one word of abuse against my brother Andy. So long as it was myself and my mother, I did not mind; but every hair of Andy's head is sacred to us who know him, and I would take his part against the world, were it only for the sake of Ethie, who loved him so much, and whom he idolized. He would die for Ethie this very night, if need be--aye, die for you too, perhaps, if you were suffering and his life could bring relief. You don't know Andy, or you would know why we held him as dear as we do the memory of our darling Daisy; and when you taunt me with my half-witted brother, you hurt me as much as you would to tear my dead sister from her grave, and expose her dear face to the gaze of brutal men. No, Mrs. Van Buren, say what you like of me, but never again sneer at my brother Andy."

Richard paused, panting for breath, while Mrs. Van Buren looked at him with entirely new sensations from what she had before experienced. There was some delicacy of feeling in his nature, after all--something which recoiled from her unwomanly attack upon his weak-minded brother--and she respected him at that moment, if she had never done so before. Something like shame, too, she felt for her cruel taunt, which had both roused and wounded him, and she would gladly have recalled all she said of Andy if she could, for she remembered now what Aunt Barbara had told her of his kindness and the strong attachment there was between the simple man and Ethie. Mrs. Van Buren could be generous if she tried; and as this seemed a time for the trial, she did attempt to apologize, saying her zeal for Ethie had carried her too far; that she hoped Richard would excuse what she had said of Andy--she had no intention of wounding him on that point.

And Richard accepted the apology, but his face did not again assume the cowed, broken expression it had worn at first. There was a compression about the mouth, a firm shutting together of the teeth, and a dark look in the bloodshot eyes, which warned Mrs. Van Buren not to repeat much of what she had said. It would not now be received as it was at first. Richard would do much to bring Ethie back--he would submit to any humiliation, and bear anything for himself, but he would never again listen quietly while his mother and family were so thoroughly abused. Mrs. Van Buren felt this intuitively, and knowing that what she said had made an impression, and would after a time be acted upon, perhaps, she changed her tactics, and became quite as conciliating as Aunt Barbara herself, talking and consulting with Richard as to the best course to be pursued with regard to finding Ethie, and succeeding, in part, in removing from his face the expression it had put on when Andy was the subject of her maledictions.

Richard had a great dread of meeting his uncle, the old colonel, in his present trouble, and he was not quite sure whether he should go there or not. At least, he should not to-night; and when the clock struck eleven, he arose to retire.

"The room at the head of the stairs. I had a fire made for you in there," Aunt Barbara said, as she handed him the lamp.