Mrs. James Markham had spent a few weeks with a party of Davenport friends in St. Paul and vicinity, but she was now at home in Olney with her mother, whom she helped with the ironing that morning, showing a quickness and dexterity in the doing up of Tim's shirts and best table linen which proved that, although a "mighty fine lady," as some of the Olneyites termed her, she had neither forgotten nor was above working in the kitchen when the occasion required. The day's ironing was over now, and refreshed with a bath and a half-hour's sleep after it, she sat under the shadow of the tall trees, arrayed in her white marseilles, which, being gored, made her look, as unsophisticated Andy thought, most too slim and flat. Andy himself was over at the Joneses that afternoon, and, down upon all fours, was playing bear with baby Ethelyn, who shouted and screamed with delight at the antics of her childish uncle. Mrs. James was not contemplating a return to Davenport for three or four weeks; indeed, ever since the letter received from Clifton with regard to Richard's sickness, she had been seriously meditating a flying visit to the invalid, who she knew would be glad to see her. It must be very desolate for him there alone, she said; and then her thoughts went after the wanderer whom they had long since ceased to talk about, much less than to expect back again. Melinda was sadly thinking of her, and speculating as to what her fate had been, when down the road from the village came the little messenger boy, who always made one's heart beat so fast when he handed out his missive. He had one now, and he brought it to Melinda, who, thinking of her husband, gone to Denver City, felt a thrill of fear lest something had befallen him. But no; the dispatch came from Davenport, from Mrs. Dobson herself, and read that a strange woman lay very sick in the house.
"A strange woman," that was all, but it made Melinda's heart leap up into her throat at the bare possibility as to who the strange woman might be. Andy was standing by her now reading the message, and Melinda knew by the flush upon his face, and the drops of perspiration which started out so suddenly around his mouth, that he, too, shared her suspicions. But not a word was spoken by either upon the subject agitating them so powerfully. Melinda only said, "I must go home at once--in the next train if possible," while Andy rejoined, "I am going with you."
Melinda knew why he was going, and when at last they were on the way, the sight of his honest-speaking face, glowing all over with eagerness and joyful anticipations, kept her own spirits up, and made what she so greatly hoped for seem absolutely certain. It was morning when they arrived, and were driven rapidly through the streets toward home. The house seemed very quiet; every window and shutter, so far as they could see, was closed, and both experienced a terrible fear lest "the strange woman" was gone. They could not wait for Hannah to open the door, and so they went round to the basement, surprising Mrs. Dobson as she bent over the fire, stirring the basin of gruel she was preparing for her patient. "The strange woman" was not gone. She was raving mad, Mrs. Dobson said, and talked the queerest things. "I've had the doctor, just as I knew you would have done, had you been here," she said, "and he pronounced it brain fever, brought on by fatigue, and some great excitement or worriment. 'Pears like she thought she was divorced, or somebody was divorced, for she was talking about it, and showing the ring on her fourth finger. I hope Governor Markham won't mind it. 'Twas none of my doings. She went there herself, and I first found her in the bed in that room where nobody ever slept--the bride's room, I call it, you know."
"Is she there?" Melinda asked, in amazement, while Andy, who had been standing near the door which led up to the next floor, disappeared up the stairs, leaving the women alone.
He knew the way to the room designated, and went hurrying on until he reached the door, and there he paused, his flesh creeping with the intensity of his excitement, and his whole being pervaded with a crushing sense of eager expectancy. He had not put into words what or whom he expected to find on the other side of the door he hardly dared to open. He only knew he should be terribly disappointed if his conjectures proved wrong, and a smothered prayer rose to his lips, "God grant it may be the she I mean."
The she he meant was sleeping now. The brown head which rolled so restlessly all night was lying quietly upon the pillows, the burning cheek resting upon one hand, and the mass of long, bright hair tucked back under one of Mrs. Dobson's own nightcaps, that lady having sought in vain for such an article among her mistress' wardrobe. She did not hear Andy as he stepped softly across the floor to the bedside. Bending cautiously above her, he hesitated a moment, while a great throb of disappointment ran through his veins. Surely that was not Ethie, with the hollow cheeks and the disfiguring frill around her face, giving her more the look of the new and stylish nurse Melinda had got from Chicago--the woman who wore a cap in place of a bonnet, and jabbered half the time in some foreign tongue, which Melinda said was French. The room was very dark, and Andy pushed back a blind, letting in such a flood of light that the sleeper started, and moaned, and turned herself upon the pillow, while with a gasping, sobbing cry, Andy fell upon his knees, and with clasped hands and streaming eyes, exclaimed:
"I thank Thee, Father of mercies, more than I can tell, for it is Ethie--it is Ethie--it is Ethie, our own darling Ethie, come back to us again; and now, dear Lord, bring old Dick home at once, and let us have a time of it."
Ethie's eyes were opened and fixed inquiringly upon Andy. Something in his voice and manner must have penetrated through the mists of delirium clouding her brain, for the glimmer of a smile played round her lips, and her hands moved slowly toward him; then they went back again to her throat and tugged at the nightcap strings which good Mrs. Dobson had tied in a hard knot by way of keeping the cap upon the refractory head. Ethie did not fancy the cap any more than Andy, who, guessing her wishes, lent his own assistance to the untying of the strings.
"You don't like the pesky thing on your head, making you look so like a scarecrow, do you?" he said gently, as with a jerk he broke the strings and then threw the discarded cap upon the floor.
Ethie seemed to know him for a moment, and, "Kiss me, Andy," came feebly from her lips. Winding his arms about her, Andy did kiss her many times, while his tears dropped upon her face and moistened the long hair, which, relieved from its confinement, fell in dark masses about her face, making her look more like the Ethelyn of old than she had at first.
"Was there a divorce?" she whispered, and Andy, in great perplexity, was wondering what she meant, when Melinda's step came along the hall, and Melinda entered the room together with Mrs. Dobson.
"It's she--herself! It's our own Ethie!" Andy exclaimed, standing back a little from the bed, but still holding the feverish hand which had grasped his so firmly, as if in that touch alone was rest and security.
"I thought so," and with a satisfied nod Mrs. Dobson put down her bowl of gruel and went down to communicate the startling news to Hannah, who nearly lost her senses in the first moment of surprise.
"Do you know me, Ethie?" Melinda asked, but in the bright, rolling eyes there was no ray of reason; only the lip quivered slightly, and Ethie said so sadly, so beseechingly, "Don't send me away, when I am so tired and sorry."
She seemed to have a vague idea where she was and who was with her, clinging closer to Andy, as if surest of him, and once when he bent over her, she suddenly wound her arms around his neck and whispered, "Don't leave me--it's nice to know you are with me; and don't let them put that dreadful thing on my head again. Aunt Van Buren said I was a fright. Will Richard think so, too?"
This was the only time she mentioned her husband, though she talked of Clifton and Mrs. Pry, and the story of the divorce, and the dear little chapel where she said God always came, bidding Andy kneel down and pray just as they were doing there when the summer day drew to a close.
"We must send for Dick," Andy said; "but don't let's tell the whole; let's leave something to his imagination;" and so the telegram which went to Governor Markham read simply: "Come home immediately. Don't wait for a single train."
Richard had heard of Miss Bigelow's sudden departure, and had been surprised to find how much he missed the light footsteps and the rustling sound which had come from No. 101. He was a good deal interested in Miss Bigelow, and when Mary told him of her leaving so unexpectedly and appearing so excited, there had for a moment flashed over him the wild thought, "Could it be?" No, it could not, he said; but he questioned Mary as to the appearance of the lady in No. 101. "Was she very handsome, with full, rosy cheeks, and eyes of chestnut brown?"
"She was rather pretty," Mary said; "but her face was thin and pale, and her eyes, she guessed, were black."
It was not Ethie, then--Richard had never believed it was--but he felt sorry that she was gone, whoever she might be, and Clifton was not so pleasant to him now as it had been at first. He was much better, and had been once to the chapel, when up the three flights of stairs Perry came and along the hall till he stopped at Room No. 102. There was a telegram for Richard, who took it with trembling hands and read it with a blur before his eyes and something at his heart like a blow, but which was born of a sudden hope that, after many days and months and years of waiting, God had deigned to be merciful. But only for a brief moment did this hope buoy him up. It could not be, he said; and yet, as he made his hasty preparations for his journey, he found the possibility constantly recurring to his mind, while the nearer he came to Davenport the more probable it seemed, and the more impatient he grew at every little delay. There were several upon the road, and once, only fifty miles from home, there was a detention of four hours. But the long train moved at last, and just as the sun was setting the cars stopped in the Davenport depot, and as the passengers alighted the loungers whispered to each other, "Governor Markham has come home."
Arrived at Davenport, and so near his home that he could discern its roofs and chimneys, the hope which had kept Richard up all through his rapid journey began to give way, and he hardly knew what or whom he expected to find, as he went up the steps to his house and rang the door bell. Certainly not Andy--he had not thought of him--and his pulse quickened with a feeling of eagerness and hope renewed when he caught sight of his brother's beaming face and felt the pressure of his broad hand. In his delight Andy kissed his brother two or three times during the interval it took to get him through the hall into the reception room, where they were alone. Arrived there, Andy fell to capering across the floor, while Richard looked on, puzzled to decide whether his weak brother had gone wholly daft or not. Recollecting himself at last, and assuming a more sober attitude, Andy came close to him and whispered:
"Dick, you ought to be thankful, so thankful and glad that God has been kind at last and heard our prayers, just as I always told you he would. Guess who is upstairs, ravin' crazy by spells, and quiet as a Maltese kitten the rest of the time? I'll bet, though, you'll never guess, it is so strange? Try, now--who do you think it is?"
"Ethelyn," came in a whisper from Richard's lips, and rather crestfallen, the simple Andy said, "Somebody told you, I know; but you are right. Ethie is here--came when we all was gone--said she was a connection of yourn, and so Miss Dobson let her in, and treated her up, and showed her the house, and left her in them rooms you fixed a purpose for her. You see Miss Dobson had some truck she was canning, and she stayed downstairs so long that when she went back she found Ethie had taken possession of that bed where nobody ever slept, and was burnin' up with fever and talkin' the queerest kind of talk about divorces, and all that, and there was something in her face made Miss Dobson mistrust who she was, and she telegraphed for Melinda and me--or rather for Melinda--and I came out with her, for I knew in a minit who the strange woman was. But she won't know you, Dick. She don't know me, though she lays her head on my arm and snugs up to me awful neat. Will you go now to see her?"
The question was superfluous, for Richard was halfway up the stairs, followed close by Andy, who went with him to the door of Ethie's room, and then stood back, thinking it best for Richard to go in alone.
Ethelyn was asleep, and Melinda sat watching her. She knew it was Richard who came in, for she had heard his voice in the hall, and greeting him quickly, arose and left the room, whispering: "If she wakes, don't startle her. Probably she will not know you."
Then she went out, and Richard was alone with the wife he had not seen for more than five weary years. It was very dark in the room, and it took him a moment to accustom himself to the light enough to discover the figure lying so still before him, the pale eyelids closed, and the long eyelashes resting upon the crimson cheek. The lips and forehead were very white, but the rest of the face was purple with fever, and as that gave the cheeks a fuller, rounder look, she did not at first seem greatly changed, but looked much as she did the time he came from Washington and found her so low. The long hair which Andy would not have confined in a cap was pushed back from her brow, and lay in tangled masses upon the pillow, while her hands were folded one within the other and rested outside the covering. And Richard touched her hands first--the little, soft, white hands he used to think so pretty, and which he now kissed so softly as he knelt by the bedside and tried to look closely into Ethie's face.
"My poor, sick darling, God knows how glad I am to have you back," he murmured, and his tears dropped like rain upon the hands he pressed so gently. Then softly caressing the pale forehead, his fingers threaded the mass of tangled hair, and his lips touched the hot, burning ones which quivered for a moment, and then said, brokenly:
"A dream--all a dream. I've had it so many times."
She was waking, and Richard drew back a step or two, while the bright, restless eyes moved round the room as if in quest of someone.
"It's very dark," she said, and turning one of the shutters Richard came back and stood just where the light would fall upon his face as it did on hers.
He saw now how changed she was; but she was none the less dear to him for that, and he spoke to her very tenderly:
"Ethie, darling, don't you know me? I am Richard, your husband, and I am so glad to get you back."
There did seem to be a moment's consciousness, for there crept into the eyes a startled, anxious look as they scanned Richard's face; then the lip quivered again, and Ethie said pleadingly:
"Don't send me away. I am so tired, and the road was so long. I thought I would never get here. Let me stay. I shall not be bad any more."
Then, unmindful of consequences, Richard gathered her in his arms, and held her there an instant in a passionate embrace, which left her pale and panting, but seemed to reassure her, for when he would have laid her back upon the pillow, she said to him, "No, not there--on your arm--so. Yes, that's nice," and an expression of intense satisfaction stole into her face as she nestled her head close to Richard's bosom, and, closing her eyes, seemed to sleep again. And Richard held her thus, forgetting his own fatigue, and refusing to give up his post either to Andy or Melinda, both of whom ventured in at last, and tried to make him take some refreshment and rest.
"I am not hungry," he said, "and it is rest enough to be with Ethelyn."
Much he wondered where she had come from, and Melinda repeated all Ethelyn had said which would throw any light upon the subject.
"She has talked of the Nile, and St. Petersburg, and the Hellespont, and the ship which was bringing her to Richard, and of Chicopee, but it was difficult telling how much was real," Melinda said, adding, "She talked of Clifton, too; and were it possible, I should say she came direct from there, but that could not be. You would have known if she had been there. What was the number of your room?"
"102," Richard replied, a new revelation dawning upon him, while Melinda rejoined:
"That is the number she talks about--that and 101. Can it be that she was there?"
Richard was certain of it. The Miss Bigelow who had interested him so much lay there in his arms, his own wife, who was, if possible, tenfold dearer to him now than when he first held her as his bride. He knew she was very sick, but she would not die, he said to himself. God had not restored her to him just to take her away again, and make his desolation more desolate. Ethie would live. And surely if love, and nursing, and tender care were of any avail to save the life which at times seemed fluttering on the very verge of the grave, Ethelyn would live. Nothing was spared which could avail to save her, and even the physician, who had all along done what he could, seemed to redouble his efforts when he ascertained who his patient was.
Great was the surprise, and numerous the remarks and surmises of the citizens, when it was whispered abroad that the strange woman lying so sick in the governor's house was no other than the governor's wife, about whom the people had speculated so much. Nor was it long ere the news went to Camden, stirring up the people there, and bringing Mrs. Miller at once to Davenport, where she stayed at a hotel until such time as she could be admitted to Ethelyn's presence.
Mrs. Markham, senior, was washing windows when Tim Jones brought her the letter bearing the Davenport postmark. Melinda had purposely abstained from writing home until Richard came; and so the letter was in his handwriting, which his mother recognized at once.
"Why, it's from Richard!" she exclaimed. "I thought he wouldn't stay long at Clifton. I never did believe in swashin' all the time. A bath in the tin washbasin does me very well," and the good woman wiped her window leisurely, and even put it back and fastened the side-slat in its place before she sat down to see what Richard had written.
Tim knew what he had written, for in his hat was another letter from Melinda, for his mother, which he had opened, his feet going off into a kind of double shuffle as he read that Ethelyn had returned. She had been very cold and proud to him; but he had admired her greatly, and remembered her with none but kindly feelings. He was a little anxious to know what Mrs. Markham would say, but as she was in no hurry to open her letter, and he was in a hurry to tell his mother the good news, he bade her good-morning, and mounting his horse, galloped away toward home.
"I hope he's told who the critter was that was took sick in the house," Mrs. Markham said, as she adjusted her glasses and broke the seal.
Mrs. Markham had never fainted in her life, but she came very near it that morning, feeling some as she would if the Daisy, dead, so long, had suddenly walked into the room and taken a seat beside her.
"I am glad for Dick," she said. "I never saw a man change as he has, pinin' for her. I mean to be good to her, if I can," and Mrs. Markham's sun-bonnet was bent low over Richard's letter, on which there were traces of tears when the head was lifted up again. "I must let John know, I never can stand it till dinner time," she said, and a shrill blast from the tin horn, used to bring her sons to dinner, went echoing across the prairie to the lot where John was working.
It was not a single blast, but peal upon peal, a loud, prolonged sound, which startled John greatly, especially as he knew by the sun that it could not be twelve o'clock.
"Blows as if somebody was in a fit," he said, as he took long and rapid strides toward the farmhouse.
His mother met him in the lane, letter in hand, and her face white with excitement as she said below her breath:
"John, John, oh! John, she's come. She's there at Richard's--sick with the fever, and crazy; and Richard is so glad. Read what he says."
She did not say who had come, but John knew, and his eyes were dim with tears as he took the letter from his mother's hand, and read it, walking beside her to the house.
"I presume they doctor her that silly fashion, with little pills the size of a small pin head. Melinda is so set in her way. She ought to have some good French brandy if they want to save her. I'd better go myself and see to it," Mrs. Markham said, after they had reached the house, and John, at her request, had read the letter aloud.
John did not quite fancy his mother's going, particularly as Richard had said nothing about it, but Mrs. Markham was determined.
"It was a good way to make it up with Ethelyn, to be there when she come to," she thought, and so, leaving her house-cleaning to itself, and John to his bread and milk, of which he never tired, she packed a little traveling bag, and taking with her a bottle of brandy, started on the next train for Davenport, where she had never been.
Aunt Barbara was not cleaning house. She was cutting dried caraway seed in the garden, and thinking of Ethie, wondering why she did not write, and hoping that when she did she would say that she had talked with Richard, and made the matter up. Ever since hearing that he was at Clifton, in the next room to Ethie, Aunt Barbara had counted upon a speedy reconciliation, and done many things with a direct reference to that reconciliation. The best chamber was kept constantly aired, with bouquets of flowers in it, in case the happy pair, "as good as just married," should come suddenly upon her. Ethie's favorite loaf cake was constantly kept on hand, and when Betty suggested that they should let Uncle Billy cut down that caraway seed, "and heave it away," the good soul objected, thinking there was no telling what would happen, and it was well enough to save such things as anise and caraway. So, in her big cape bonnet, she was cutting her branches of herbs, when Charlie Howard looked over the garden gate with "Got a letter for you."
"It ain't from her. It's from--why, it's from Richard, and he is in Davenport," Aunt Barbara exclaimed, as she sat down in a garden chair to read the letter which was not from Ethie.
Richard did not say directly to her that she must come, but Aunt Barbara felt an innate conviction that her presence would not be disagreeable, even if Ethie lived, while "if she died," and Aunt Barbara's heart gave a great throb as she thought it, "if Ethie died she must be there," and so her trunk was packed for the third time in Ethie's behalf, and the next day's train from Boston carried the good woman on her way to Davenport.
There had been a succession of rainy days in Davenport--dark, rainy days, which added to the gloom hanging over that house where they watched so intently by Ethie's side, trembling lest the life they prayed for so earnestly might go out at any moment, so high the fever ran, and so wild and restless the patient grew. The friends were all there now--James, and John, and Andy, and Aunt Barbara, with Mrs. Markham, senior, who, at first, felt a little worried, lest her son should be eaten out of house and home, especially as Melinda manifested no disposition to stint the table of any of their accustomed luxuries. As housekeeper, Mrs. Dobson was a little inclined at first to stand in awe of the governor's mother, and so offered no remonstrance when the tea grounds from supper were carefully saved to be boiled up for breakfast, as both Melinda and Aunt Barbara preferred tea to coffee, but when it came to a mackerel and a half for seven people, and four of them men, Mrs. Dobson demurred, and Melinda's opinion in requisition, the result was that three fishes, instead of one and a half smoked upon the breakfast table next morning, together with toast and mutton-chops. After that Mrs. Markham gave up the contest with a groan, saying, "they might go to destruction their own way, for all of her."
Where Ethelyn was concerned, however, she showed no stint. Nothing was too good for her, no expense too great, and next to Richard and Andy, she seemed more anxious, more interested than anyone for the sick girl who lay so insensible of all that was passing around her, save at brief intervals when she seemed for an instant to realize where she was, for her eyes would flash about the room with a frightened, startled look, and then seek Richard's face with a wistful, pleading expression, as if asking not to cast her off, not to send her back into the dreary world where she had wandered so long alone. The sight of so many seemed to worry her, for she often talked of the crowd at the Clifton depot, saying they took her breath away; and once, drawing Andy's face down to her, she whispered to him, "Send them back to the Cure, all but his royal highness"--pointing to Richard--"and Anna, the prophetess, she can stay."
This was Aunt Barbara, to whom Ethelyn clung as a child to its mother, missing her the moment she left the room, and growing quiet as soon as she returned. It was the same with Richard. She seemed to know when he quitted her side, and her eyes watched the door eagerly till he came back to her again. At the doctor's suggestion, all were at last banished from the sick-room except Aunt Barbara, and Richard, and Nick Bottom, as she persisted in calling poor Andy, who was terribly perplexed to know whether he was complimented or not, and who eventually took to studying Shakspere to find out who Bottom was. Those were trying days to Richard, who rarely left Ethie's bedside, except when it was absolutely necessary. She was more quiet with him, and would sometimes sleep for hours upon his arm, with one hand clasped in Aunt Barbara's, and the other held by Andy. At other times, when the fever was on, no arm availed to hold her as she tossed from side to side, talking of things at which a stranger would have marveled, and which made Richard's heart ache to its very core. At times she was a girl in Chicopee, and all the past as connected with Frank Van Buren was lived over again; then she would talk of Richard, and shudder as she recalled the dreary, dreadful day when the honeysuckles were in blossom, and he came to make her his wife.
"It was wrong, all wrong. I did not love him then," she said, "nor afterward, on the prairie, nor anywhere, until I went away, and found what it was to live without him."
"And do you love him now?" Richard asked her once when he sat alone with her.
There was no hesitancy on her part, no waiting to make up an answer. It was ready on her lips, "Yes, oh, yes!" and the weak arms lifted themselves up and were wound around his neck with a pressure almost stifling. How much of this was real Richard could not tell, but he accepted it as such, and waited impatiently for the day when the full light of reason should return and Ethie be restored to him. There was but little of her past life which he did not learn from her ravings, and so there was less for her to tell him when at last the fever abated, and his eyes met hers with a knowing, rational expression. Andy was alone with her when the change first came. The rain, which had fallen so steadily, was over, and out upon the river the sunlight was softly falling. At Andy's earnest entreaty, Richard had gone for a little exercise in the open air, and was walking slowly up and down the broad piazza, while Aunt Barbara slept, and Andy kept his vigils by Ethelyn. She, too, was sleeping quietly, and Andy saw the great drops of perspiration standing upon her brow and beneath her hair. He knew it was a good omen, and on his knees by the bedside, with his face in his hands, he prayed aloud, thanking God for restoring Ethelyn to them, and asking that they might all be taught just how to make her happy. A faint sound between a moan and a sob roused him and, looking up, he saw the great tears rolling down Ethie's cheeks, while her lips moved as if they would speak to him.
"Andy, dear old Andy! is it you, and are you glad to have me back?" she said, and then all Andy's pent-up feelings found vent in a storm of tears and passionate protestations of love and tenderness for his darling sister.
She remembered how she came there, and seemed to understand why Andy was there, too; but the rest was a little confused. Was Aunt Barbara there, or had she only dreamed it?
"Aunt Barbara is here," Andy said, and then, with the same frightened, anxious look her face had so often worn during her illness, Ethie said: "Somebody else has sat by me and held my head and hands, and kissed me! Andy, tell me--was that Richard?--and did he kiss me, and is he glad to find me?"
She was gazing fixedly at Andy, who replied: "Yes, Dick is here. He's glad to have you back. He's kissed you more than forty times. He don't remember nothing.''
"And the divorce, Andy--is the story true, and am I not his wife?"
"I never heard of no divorce, only what you said about one in your tantrums. Dick would as soon have cut off his head as got such a thing," Andy replied.
Ethelyn knew she could rely on what Andy said, and a heartfelt "Thank God! It is more than I deserve!" fell from her lips, just as a step was heard in the hall.
"That's Dick,--he's coming," Andy whispered, and hastily withdrawing he left the two alone together.
It was more than an hour before even Aunt Barbara ventured into the room, and when she did she knew by the joy written on Richard's face and the deep peace shining in Ethie's eyes that the reconciliation had been complete and perfect. Every error had been confessed, every fault forgiven, and the husband and wife stood ready now to begin the world anew, with perfect love for and confidence in each other. Ethie had acknowledged all her faults, the greatest of which was the giving her hand to one from whom she withheld her heart.
"But you have that now," she said. "I can truly say that I love you far betten than ever frank Van Buren was loved, and I know you to be worthy, too. I have been so wicked, Richard,--so wilful and impatient,--that I wonder you have not learned to hate my very name. I may be wilful still. My old hot temper is not all subdued, though I hope I am a better woman than I used to be when I cared for nothing but myself. God has been so good to me who have forgotten Him so long; but we will serve Him together now."
As Ethie talked she had nestled closer and closer to her husband, whose arms encircled her form and whose face bent itself down to hers, while a rain of tears fell upon her hair and forehead as the strong man,--the grave Judge and the honored Governor,--confessed where he, too, had been in fault, and craving his young wife's pardon, ascribed also to God the praise for bringing them both to feel their dependence on Him, as well as to see this day, the happiest of their lives.
Gradually, as she could bear it, the family came in one by one to see her, Mrs. Markham, Sen., waiting till the very last, and refusing to go until Ethelyn had expressed a wish to see her.
"I was pretty hard on her, I s'pose, and it would not be strange if she laid it up against me," she said to Melinda; but Ethie had nothing against her now.
The deep waters through which she had passed had obliterated all traces of bitterness toward anyone, and when her mother-in-law came in she feebly extended her hand and whispered: "I'm too tired, mother, to talk much, but kiss me once for the sake of what we are going to be to each other."
Mrs. Markham was not naturally a bad or a hard woman, either. She was only unfortunate that her ideas had run in one rut so long without any jolt to throw them out. Circumstances had greatly softened her, and Ethie's words touched her deeply.
"I was mighty mean to you sometimes, Ethelyn, and I've been sorry for it," she said, as she stooped to kiss her daughter-in-law, and then hurried from the room, "Only to think, she called me mother," she said to Melinda, to whom she reported the particulars of her interview with Ethelyn--"me, who had been meaner than dirt to her--called me mother, when I used to mistrust her she didn't think any more of me than if I'd been an old squaw. I shan't forget it right away."
Perhaps the sweetest, most joyful tears Ethelyn shed that day were those which came to her eyes when they brought her Ethelyn, her namesake, the little three-year-old, who pushed her brown curls back from her baby face with such a womanly air, and said:
"I'se glad to see Aunt Ethie. I prays for her ever' night. Uncle Andy told me so. I loves you, Aunt Ethie."
She was a beautiful little creature, and her innocent prattle and engaging manners did much toward bringing the color back to Ethie's cheeks and the brightness to her eyes. Those days of convalescence were blissful ones, for now there was no shadow of a cloud resting on the domestic horizon. Between husband and wife there was perfect love, and in his newly born happiness, Richard forgot the ailments which had sent him an invalid to Clifton, while Ethie, surrounded by every luxury which love could devise or money procure, and made each hour to feel how dear she was to those from whom she had been so long estranged, grew fresh, and young, and pretty again; so that when, early in December, Mrs. Dr. Van Buren came to Davenport to see her niece, she found her more beautiful far than she had been in her early girlhood, when the boyish Frank had paid his court to her. Poor little Nettie was dead. Her life had literally been worried out of her; and during those September days, when Ethelyn was watched and tended so carefully, she had turned herself wearily upon her pillow, and just as the clock was striking the hour of midnight, asked of the attendant:
"Has Frank come yet?"
"Not yet. Do you want anything?"
"No, nothing. Is mother here?"
"She was tired out, and has gone to her room to rest. Shall I call her?"
"No, no matter. Is Ethie in her crib? Please bring her here. Never mind if you do wake her. 'Tis the last time."
And so the little sleeping child was brought to the dying mother, who would fain feel that something she had loved was near her in the last hour of loneliness and anguish she would ever know. Sorrow, disappointment, and cruel neglect had been her lot ever since she became a wife, but at the last these had purified and made her better, and led her to the Saviour's feet, where she laid the little child she held so closely to her bosom, dropping her tears upon its face and pressing her farewell kiss upon its lips. Then she put it from her, and bidding the servant remove the light, which made her eyes ache so, turned again upon her pillow, and folding her little, white, wasted hands upon her bosom, said softly the prayer the Saviour taught, and then glided as softly down the river whose tide is never backward toward the shores of time.
About one Frank came home from the young men's association which he attended so often, his head fuller of champagne and brandy than it was of sense, and every good feeling blunted with dissipation. But the Nettie whose pale face had been to him so constant a reproach was gone forever, and only the lifeless form was left of what he once called his wife. She was buried in Mount Auburn, and they made her a grander funeral than they had given to her first-born, and then the household want on the same as ever until Mrs. Van Buren conceived the idea of visiting her niece, Mrs. Gov. Markham, and taking her grandchild with her. For the sake of the name she was sure the little girl would be welcome, as well as for the sake of the dead mother. And she was welcome, more so even than the stately aunt, whose deep mourning robes seemed to throw a kind of shadowy gloom over the house which she found so handsome, and elegant, and perfectly kept that she would willingly have spent the entire winter there. She was not invited to do this, and some time in January she went back to her home, looking out on Boston Common, but not until she had eaten a Christmas dinner with Mrs. Markham, senior, at whose house the whole family were assembled on that occasion.
There was much good cheer and merriment there, and Ethie, in her rich crimson silk which Richard had surprised her with, was the queen of all, her wishes deferred to, and her tastes consulted with a delicacy and deference which no one could fail to observe. And Eunice Plympton was there, too, waiting upon the table with Andy, who insisted upon standing at the back of Ethie's chair, just as he had seen the waiters do in Camden, and would have his mother ring the silver bell when anything was wanted. It was a happy family reunion, and a meet harbinger of the peaceful days in store for our heroine--days which came and went so fast, until winter melted into spring, and the spring budded into blushing summer, and the summer faded into the golden autumn, and the autumn floated with feathery snowflakes into the chilly winter and December came again, bringing another meeting of the Markhams. But this time it was at the governor's house in Davenport, and another was added to the number--a pretty little waxen thing, which all through the elaborate dinner slept quietly in its crib, and then in the evening, when the gas was lighted in the parlors, and Mr. Townsend was there in his gown, behaved most admirably, and lay very still in its father Richard's arms, until it was transferred from his to those of the clergyman, who in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost baptized it "Daisy Adelaide Grant."