"What's he calling to see Orlean for?"
Her mother looked up in some surprise. She regarded her daughter keenly. "Why, my dear! Why do you ask such a question! Why do young men call to see any young ladies?" Both turned at this moment to see Orlean coming down the stairway, and attention was fastened upon her following.
"All 'dolled' up to meet your farmer," commented Ethel with a touch of envy in her voice. In truth she was envious. Her husband was just an ordinary fellow—that is, he was largely what she was making of him. It was said that she had found no other man who was willing to tolerate her evil temper and that, perhaps, was why she had married him. While with him, he had been anxious to marry her to satisfy his social ambition. Although an honest, hardworking fellow, he had come of very common stock. From the backwoods of Tennessee where his father had been a crude, untrained preacher, he had come to Chicago and had met and married her after a courtship of six years.
"You look very nice, my dear," said her mother, addressing Orlean. Between the two children there was a great difference. Although older, Orlean was by far the more timid by disposition. An obedient girl in every way, she had never been known to cross her parents, and had the happy faculty of making herself generally liked, while Ethel invited disfavor.
She was not so tall as Ethel, and while not as short as her mother, she was heavier than either. She was the image of her father who was dark, although not black. After her mother she had taken her hair, which, while not as fine, was nevertheless heavy, black and attractive. Her eyes were dark like her mother's, which were coal black. They were small and tender. Her expression was very frank; but she had inherited her mother's timidness and was subservient unto her father, and in a measure unto her younger sister, Ethel.
She was a year older than the man who was coming to see her, and had never had a beau.
"Do I look all right, mama?" she asked, turning so that she might be seen all around.
"Yes, my dear," the other replied. She always used the term "my dear." She had been trained to say that when she was a young wife, and had never gotten out of the habit.
"Now sit down, my daughter," she said judiciously, "and before the young man comes to call on you, tell me all about him."
"Yes, and leave out nothing," interposed Ethel.