Ethelyn's Mistake

It was the Tuesday before Lent. The gay season was drawing to a close,

for Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Miller, who led the fashionable world of Camden

before Ethelyn's introduction to it, were the highest kind of

church-women, and while neglecting the weightier matters of the law

were strict to bring their tithes of mint, and anise, and cummin. They

were going to wear sackcloth and ashes for forty days and stay at home,

unless, as Mrs. Miller said to Ethelyn, they met occasionally in each

other's house for a quiet game of whist or euchre. There could be no

harm in that, particularly if they abstained on Fridays, as of course

they should. Mr. Bartow himself could not find fault with so simple a

recreation, even if he did try so hard to show what his views were with

regard to keeping the Lenten fast. Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Howard intended

to be very regular at the morning service, hoping that the odor of

sanctity with which they would thus be permeated would in some way atone

for the absence of genuine heart-religion and last them for the

remainder of the year. First, however, and as a means of helping her in

her intended seclusion from the world, Mrs. Howard was to give the

largest party of the season--a sort of carnival, from which the revelers

were expected to retire the moment the silvery-voiced clock on her

mantel struck the hour of twelve and ushered in the dawn of Lent. It was

to be a masquerade, for the Camdenites had almost gone mad on that

fashion which Ethelyn had the credit of introducing into their midst;

that is, she was the first to propose a masquerade early in the season,

telling what she had seen and giving the benefit of her larger

experience in such matters.

It was a fashion which took wonderfully with the people, for the

curiosity and interest attaching to the characters was just suited to

the restless, eager temperament of the Camdenites, and they entered into

it with heart and soul, ransacking boxes and barrels and worm-eaten

chests, scouring the country far and near and even sending as far as

Davenport and Rock Island for the necessary costumes. Andy himself had

been asked by Harry Clifford to lend his Sunday suit, that young scamp

intending to personate some raw New England Yankee; and that was how

Mrs. Markham, senior, first came to hear of the proceedings which, to

one of her rigid views, savored strongly of the pit, especially after

she heard one of the parties described by an eye-witness, who mentioned

among other characters his Satanic Majesty, as enacted by Harry

Clifford, who would fain have appeared next in Andy's clothes! No wonder

the good woman was enraged and took the next train for Camden, giving

her son and daughter a piece of her mind and winding up her discourse

with: "And they say you have the very de'il himself, with hoofs and

horns. I think you might have left him alone, for I reckon he was there

fast enough if you could not see him."