he
reply, "You are mistaken, sir--at least, so far as I am concerned."

After that she stayed more with Richard, and once, of her own accord,
she put her arm in his and stood half leaning against him with both
hands clasped together, while he held the bouquet which Mrs. Senator
Woodhull had sent by express from New York. It is true that Richard
smelled and breathed upon the flowers oftener than was desirable; and
once Ethelyn saw him extracting leaves from the very choicest blossoms;
but on the whole he did very well, considering that it was the first
time he had ever held a lady's bouquet in such an expensive holder.

As Ethelyn had predicted, the evening was hot and sultry; but the bugs
and beetles and millers she had dreaded did not come in to annoy her,
and when, as the clock struck twelve, the company dispersed, they were
sincere in their assertions of having passed a delightful evening, and
many were the good wishes expressed for Mrs. Judge Markham's happiness
as the guests took their way to their respective homes.

An hour later and the lights had disappeared from Miss Barbara Bigelow's
windows, and the summer stars looked down upon the quiet house where
that strange bridal had been.

CHAPTER V

THE HONEYMOON

From Mrs. Senator Woodhull's elegant house--where Mrs. Judge Markham had
been petted, and flattered, and caressed, and Mr. Judge Markham had been
adroitly tutored and trained without the least effect--the newly wedded
pair went on to Quebec and Montreal, and thence to the White Mountains,
where Ethelyn's handsome traveling dress was ruined and Richard's linen
coat, so obnoxious to his bride, was torn past repair and laid away in
one of Ethelyn's trunks, with the remark that "Mother could mend it for
Andy, who always took his brother's cast-off clothes." The hair trunk
had been left in Chicopee, and so Ethelyn had not that to vex her.

Noticed everywhere, and admired by all whom she met, the first part of
her wedding trip was not as irksome as she had feared it might be.
Pleased, as a boy, with his young bride, Richard was all attention, and
Ethelyn had only to express a wish to have it gratified, so that casual
lookers-on would have pronounced her supremely happy. And Ethelyn's
heart did not ache one-half so hard as on that terrible day of her
bridal. In the railway car, on the crowded steamboat, or at the large
hotels, where all were entire strangers, she forgot to watch and
criticise her husba