Ethelyn's Mistake

by Mary Jane Holmes

"My name is Markham. I am a relative of the governor. I am from the East," Ethelyn volunteered, as she saw the girl expected some explanation.

Had Hannah known more of Ethelyn, she might have suspected something; but she had not been long in the family, and coming, as she did, from St. Louis, the story of her master's wife was rather mythical to her than otherwise. That there was once a Mrs. Markham, who, for beauty, and style, and grandeur, was far superior to Mrs. James, the present mistress of the establishment, she had heard vague rumors; while only that morning when dusting and airing Richard's room, she had stopped her work a moment to admire the handsome picture which Richard had had painted, from a photograph of Ethie, taken when she was only seventeen. It was a beautiful, girlish face, and the brown eyes were bright and soft, and full of eagerness and joy; while the rounded cheeks and pouting lips were not much like the pale thin woman who now stood in the marbled hall, claiming to be a relative of the family. Hannah never dreamed who it was; but, accustomed to treat with respect everything pertaining to the governor, she opened the door of the little reception-room, and asked the lady to go in.

"I'll send you Mrs. Dobson the housekeeper," she said; and Ethie heard her shuffling tread as she disappeared through the hall and down the stairs to the regions where Mrs. Dobson reigned.

Ethelyn was a little afraid of that dignitary; something in the atmosphere of the house made her afraid of everything, inspiring her as it did with the feeling that she had no business there--that she was a trespasser, a spy, whom Mrs. Dobson would be justified in turning from the door. But Mrs. Dobson meditated no such act. She was a quiet, inoffensive, unsuspicious, personage, believing wholly in Governor Markham and everything pertaining to him. She was canning fruit when Hannah came with the message that some of the governor's kin had come from the East, and remembering to have heard that Richard once had an uncle somewhere in Massachusetts, she had no doubt that this was a daughter of the old gentleman and a cousin of Richard's, especially as Hannah described the stranger as youngish and tolerably good-looking. She had no thought that it was the runaway wife, of whom she knew more than Hannah, else she would surely have dropped the Spencer jar she was filling and burned her fingers worse than she did, trying to crowd in the refractory cover, which persisted in tipping up sideways and all ways but the right way.

"Some of his kin. Pity they are gone. What shall we do with her?" she said, as she finally pushed the cover to its place and blew the thumb she had burned badly.

"Maybe she don't mean to stay long; she didn't bring no baggage," Hannah said, and thus reassured, Mrs. Dobson rolled down her sleeves and tying on a clean apron, started for the reception-room, where Ethie sat like one stupefied, or one who walks in a dream from which he tries in vain to waken.

This house, as far as she could judge, was not like that home on the prairie where her first married days were spent. Everything here was luxurious and grand and in such perfect taste. It seemed a princely home, and Ethie experienced more than one bitter pang of regret that by her own act she had in all probability cut herself off from any part or lot in this earthly paradise.

"I deserve it, but it is very hard to bear," she thought, just as Mrs. Dobson appeared and bowing respectfully, began:

"Hannah tells me you are kin to the governor's folks,--his cousin, I reckon--and I am so sorry they are all, gone, and will be yet for some weeks. The governor is at a water cure down East--strange you didn't hear of it-- and t'other Mr. Markham has gone with his wife to Olney, and St. Paul, and dear knows where. Too bad, ain't it? But maybe you'll stay a day or two and rest? We'll make you as comfortable as we can. You look about beat out," and Mrs. Dobson came nearer to Ethelyn, whose face and lips were white as ashes, and whose eyes looked almost black with her excitement.

She was very tired. The rapid journey, made without rest or food either, save the cup of tea and cracker she tried to swallow, was beginning to tell upon her, and while Mrs. Dobson was speaking she felt stealing over her the giddiness which she knew was a precursor to fainting.