Ethelyn's Mistake

"Rather pretty, yes," Ethie said, making a great effort to speak

naturally, and adding after a moment: "I suppose it will be taken down

when the other Mrs. Markham comes."

In Mrs. Dobson's mind the other Mrs. Markham only meant Melinda, and she

replied: "Why should it? She knows it is here. She knew the other lady and liked

her, too."

"She knew me? Who can it be?" Ethie asked herself, remembering that the

name she had heard at Clifton was a strange one to her.

"This, now, is the very handsomest part of the whole house," Mrs. Dobson

said, throwing open a door which led from Richard's room into a suite of

apartments which, to Ethie's bewildered gaze, seemed more like fairyland

than anything real she had ever seen. "This the governor fitted up

expressly for his wife and I'm told he spent more money here than in all

the upper rooms. Did you ever see handsomer lace? He sent to New York

for them," she said, lifting up one of the exquisitely wrought curtains

festooned across the arch which divided the boudoir from the large

sleeping room beyond. "This I call the bridal chamber," she continued,

stepping into the room where everything was so pure and white. "But,

bless me, I forgot that I put on a lot of bottles to heat: I'll venture

they are every one of them shivered to atoms. Hannah is so careless.

Excuse me, will you, and entertain yourself a while. I reckon you can

find your way back to the parlor."

Ethelyn wanted nothing so much as to be left alone and free to indulge

in the emotions which were fast getting the mastery of her. Covering her

face with her hands, as the door closed after Mrs. Dobson, she sat for a

moment bereft of the power to think or feel. Then, as things became more

real, as great throbs of heat and pain went tearing through her temples,

she remembered that she was in Richard's house, up in the room which

Mrs. Dobson had termed the bridal chamber, the apartments which had been

fitted up for Richard's bride, whoever she might be.

"I never counted on this," she whispered, as she paced up and down the

range of rooms, from the little parlor or boudoir to the dressing room

beyond the bedroom, and the little conservatory at the side, where the

choicest of plants were in blossom, and where the dampness was so cool

to her burning brow.

It did not strike her as strange that Richard should have thought of all

this, nor did she wonder whose taste had aided him in making such a

home. She did not wonder at anything except at herself, who had missed

so much and fallen into such depths of woe.