Ethelyn's Mistake

She could not tell if it were real until Tabby sprang with a purring,

caressing sound, upon her shoulder, and rubbed her soft sides against

her cap. That made it real, and brought the color back to her wrinkled

face, but brought, also, a look of horror into her blue eyes, which

sought Mrs. Van Buren's with an eager, and yet terribly anxious glance.

Mrs. Dr. Van Buren understood the look. Its semblance had been on her

own face for an instant when she first heard the news, and now she

hastened to dispossess her sister's mind of any such suspicion.

"No, Barbara; Frank did not go with her, or even see her when in Camden.

He is not quite so bad as that, I hope."

The mother nature was in the ascendant, and for a moment resented the

suspicion against her son, even though that suspicion had been in her

own mind when Frank returned from Camden with the news of Ethie's

flight. That he had had something to do with it was her first fear,

until convinced to the contrary; and now she blamed Aunt Barbara for

harboring the same thought. As soon as possible she told all she had

heard from Frank, and then went on with her invectives against the

Markhams generally, and Richard in particular, and her endless surmises

as to where Ethelyn had gone, and what was the final cause of her going.

For a time Aunt Barbara turned a deaf ear to what she was saying,

thinking only of Ethie, gone; Ethie, driven to such strait, that she

must either run away or die; Ethie, the little brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked,

willful, imperious girl, whom she loved so much for the very willful

imperiousness which always went hand in hand with such pretty fits of

penitence, and sorrow, and remorse for the misdeed, that not to love her

was impossible. Where was she now, and why had she not come at once to

the dear old home, where she would have been so welcome until such time

as matters could be adjusted on a more amicable basis?

For Aunt Barbara, though in taking Ethie's side altogether, had no

thought that the separation should be final. She had chosen a life of

celibacy because she preferred it, and found it a very smooth and

pleasant one, especially after Ethie came and brought the sunshine of

joyous childhood to her quiet home; but "those whom God had joined

together" were bound to continue so, she firmly believed; and had Ethie

come to her with her tale of sorrow, she would have listened kindly to

it, poured in the balm of sympathy and love, and then, if possible,

restored her to her husband. Of all this she thought during the few

minutes Mrs. Dr. Van Buren talked, and she sat passive in her chair,

where she had dropped, with her dumpy little hands lying so helplessly

in her lap, and her cap all awry, as Tabby had made it when purring and

rubbing against it.