Ethelyn's Mistake

"My name is Markham. I am a relative of the governor. I am from the

East," Ethelyn volunteered, as she saw the girl expected some

explanation.

Had Hannah known more of Ethelyn, she might have suspected something;

but she had not been long in the family, and coming, as she did, from

St. Louis, the story of her master's wife was rather mythical to her

than otherwise. That there was once a Mrs. Markham, who, for beauty, and

style, and grandeur, was far superior to Mrs. James, the present

mistress of the establishment, she had heard vague rumors; while only

that morning when dusting and airing Richard's room, she had stopped her

work a moment to admire the handsome picture which Richard had had

painted, from a photograph of Ethie, taken when she was only seventeen.

It was a beautiful, girlish face, and the brown eyes were bright and

soft, and full of eagerness and joy; while the rounded cheeks and

pouting lips were not much like the pale thin woman who now stood in the

marbled hall, claiming to be a relative of the family. Hannah never

dreamed who it was; but, accustomed to treat with respect everything

pertaining to the governor, she opened the door of the little

reception-room, and asked the lady to go in.

"I'll send you Mrs. Dobson the housekeeper," she said; and Ethie heard

her shuffling tread as she disappeared through the hall and down the

stairs to the regions where Mrs. Dobson reigned.

Ethelyn was a little afraid of that dignitary; something in the

atmosphere of the house made her afraid of everything, inspiring her as

it did with the feeling that she had no business there--that she was a

trespasser, a spy, whom Mrs. Dobson would be justified in turning from

the door. But Mrs. Dobson meditated no such act. She was a quiet,

inoffensive, unsuspicious, personage, believing wholly in Governor

Markham and everything pertaining to him. She was canning fruit when

Hannah came with the message that some of the governor's kin had come

from the East, and remembering to have heard that Richard once had an

uncle somewhere in Massachusetts, she had no doubt that this was a

daughter of the old gentleman and a cousin of Richard's, especially as

Hannah described the stranger as youngish and tolerably good-looking.

She had no thought that it was the runaway wife, of whom she knew more

than Hannah, else she would surely have dropped the Spencer jar she was

filling and burned her fingers worse than she did, trying to crowd in

the refractory cover, which persisted in tipping up sideways and all

ways but the right way.

"Some of his kin. Pity they are gone. What shall we do with her?" she

said, as she finally pushed the cover to its place and blew the thumb

she had burned badly.