Ethelyn's Mistake

He was younger than his brother by half a dozen years, but he looked

quite as old, if not older. His face and hands were sunburnt and brown,

his clothes were coarse, his pants were tucked into his tall, muddy

boots, and he held in his hands the whip with which he had driven the

shining bays, pricking up their ears behind the depot and eyeing askance

the train just beginning to move away. The Markhams were all

good-looking, and James was not an exception. The Olney girls called him

very handsome, when on Sunday he came to church in his best clothes and

led the Methodist choir; but Ethelyn only thought him rough, and coarse,

and vulgar, and when he bent down to kiss her she drew back haughtily.

"Ethelyn!" Richard said, in the low, peculiar tone, which she had almost

unconsciously learned to fear, just as she did the dark expression which

his hazel eyes assumed as he said the single word "Ethelyn!"

She was afraid of Richard when he looked and spoke that way, and putting

up her lip, she permitted the kiss which the warm-hearted James gave to

her. He was naturally more demonstrative than his brother, and more

susceptible, too; a pretty face would always set his heart to beating

and call out all the gallantry of his nature. Wholly unsophisticated, he

never dreamed of the gulf there was between him and the new sister, whom

he thought so beautiful--loving her at once, because she was so pretty,

and because she was the wife of Dick, their household idol. He was more

of a ladies' man than Richard, and when on their way to the

democratic-wagon they came to a patch of mud, through which Ethelyn's

skirts were trailing, he playfully lifted her in his strong arms, and

set her down upon the wagon-box, saying, as he adjusted her skirts: "We

can't have that pretty dress spoiled, the very first day, with

Iowa mud."

All this time Tim Jones had been dutifully holding the satchel, which he

now deposited at Ethelyn's feet, and then, at James' invitation, he

sprang into the hinder part of the wagon-box, and sitting down, let his

long limbs dangle over the backboard, while James sat partly in

Richard's lap and partly in Ethelyn's. It had been decided that the

democrat must come down again for the baggage; and so, three on a seat,

with Tim Jones holding on behind, Ethelyn was driven through the town,

while face after face looked at her from the windows of the different

dwellings, and comment after comment was made upon her pretty little

round hat, with its jaunty feather, which style had not then penetrated

so far west as Olney. Rumors there were of the Eastern ladies wearing

hats which made them look at least ten years younger than their actual

age; but Ethelyn was the first to carry the fashion to Olney, and she

was pronounced very stylish, and very girlish, too, by those who watched

her curiously from behind their curtains and blinds.