Ethelyn's Mistake

Richard had been very successful in St. Louis. The business which took

him there had been more than satisfactorily arranged. He had collected a

thousand-dollar debt he never expected to get, and had been everywhere

treated with the utmost deference and consideration, as a man whose

worth was known and appreciated. But Richard was ill at ease, and his

face wore a sad, gloomy expression, which many remarked, wondering what

could be the nature of the care so evidently preying upon him. Do what

he might, he could not forget the white, stony face which had looked at

him so strangely in the gray morning, nor shut out the icy tones in

which Ethie had last spoken to him. Besides this, Richard was thinking

of all he had said to her in the heat of passion, and wishing he could

recall it in part at least. He was very indignant, very angry still, for

he believed her guilty of planning to meet Frank Van Buren at the party

and leave him at home, while his heart beat with keen throbs of pain

when he remembered that Ethie's first love was not given to him--that

she would have gone to her grave more willingly than she went with him

to the altar; but he need not have been so harsh with her--that was no

way to make her love him. Kindness must win her back should she ever be

won, and impatient to be reconciled, if reconciliation were now

possible, Richard chafed at the necessary delays which kept him a day

longer in St. Louis than he had at first intended.

Ethie had been gone just a week when he at last found himself in the

train which would take him back to Camden. First, however, he must stop

at Olney; the case was imperative--and so he stepped from the train one

snowy afternoon when the February light shone cold and blue upon the

little town and the farmhouse beyond. His brothers were feeding their

flocks and herds in the rear yard to the east; but they came at once to

greet him, and ask after his welfare. The light snow which had fallen

that day was lying upon the front door-steps undisturbed by any track,

so Richard entered at the side. Mrs. Markham was dipping candles, and

the faint, sickly odor of the hot melted tallow, which filled Richard's

olfactories as he came in, was never forgotten, but remembered as part

and parcel of that terrible day which would have a place in his memory

so long as being lasted. Every little thing was impressed upon his mind,

and came up afterward with vivid distinctness whenever he thought of

that wretched time. There was a bit of oilcloth on the floor near to the

dripping candles, and he saw the spots of tallow which had dropped and

dried upon it--saw, too, his mother's short red gown and blue woolen

stockings, as she got up to meet him, and smelled the cabbage cooking on

the stove, for they were having a late dinner that day--the boys'

favorite, and what Mrs. Markham designated as a "dish of biled vittles."