It had done good by relieving Mrs. Van Buren of a load of harassing
care, for money was not as plenty with her as formerly, and now she
wanted more. She was looking rather old and worn, and her cloak was last
year's fashion, but good enough for Chicopee, she reflected, as she
hurried into the house and stamped the muddy, melting snow from
her feet.
Utter amazement seemed the prevailing sensation in her mind when she
learned that Ethelyn had returned, and then her selfishness began to
suggest that possibly Barbara's funds, saved for Ethie, might not now be
as accessible for Frank. She was glad, though, to see her niece, but
professed herself shocked at her altered appearance.
"Upon my word, I would not have recognized you," she said, sitting down
upon the bed and looking Ethie fully in the face.
Aunt Barbara, thinking her sister might like to have Ethie alone for a
little, had purposely left the room, and so Mrs. Van Buren was free to
say what she pleased. She had felt a good deal of irritation toward
Ethie for some time past. In fact, ever since Richard became governor,
she had blamed her niece for running away from the honor which might
have been hers. As aunt to the governor's lady, she, too, would have
come in for a share of the éclat; and so, as she smoothed out the folds
of her stone-colored merino, she felt as if she had been sorely
aggrieved by that thin, white-faced woman, who really did not greatly
resemble the rosy, bright-faced Ethelyn to whom Frank Van Buren had once
talked love among the Chicopee hills.
"No, I don't believe I should have known you," Mrs. Van Buren continued.
"What have you been about to fade you so?"
Few women like to hear that they have faded, even if they know it to be
true, and Ethie's cheek flushed a little as she asked, with a smile, "Am
I really such a fright?"
"Why, no, not a fright! No one with the Bigelow features can ever be
that. But you are changed; and so I am sure Richard would think. He
liked beautiful girls. You know he has been governor?"
Ethie nodded, and Mrs. Van Buren continued: "You lost a great deal,
Ethelyn, when you went away; and I must say that, though, of course, you
had great provocation, you did a very foolish thing leaving your husband
as you did, and involving us all, to a certain extent, in disgrace."
It was the first direct intimation Ethie had received that her family
had suffered from mortification on her account. She had felt that they
must, and knew that she deserved some censure; but as kind Aunt Barbara
had withheld it, she was not quite willing to hear it from Mrs. Van
Buren, and for an instant her eyes flashed, and a hot reply trembled on
her lips; but she restrained herself and merely said: "I am sorry if I
disgraced you, Aunt Sophia. I was very unhappy at the time," "Certainly; I understand that, but the world does not; and if it did, it
forgot all when your husband became governor. He was greatly honored and
esteemed, I hear from a friend who spent a few weeks at Des Moines, and
everybody was so sorry for him."