n
Olney--she says the mother is the most peculiar and old-fashioned woman
imaginable; actually wears blue yarn stockings, footed with black, makes
her own candles, and sleeps in the kitchen."

With regard to the candles Aunt Barbara did not know; the sleeping in
the kitchen she denied, and the footed stockings she admitted; saying,
however, those she saw were black, rather than blue. Black or blue, it
was all the same to Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, whose feet seldom came in
contact with anything heavier than silk or the softest of lamb's wool;
and, had there been wanting other evidence of Mrs. Markham's vulgarity,
the stocking question would have settled the matter with her.

"Poor Ethie!" she sighed, as she drew her seat to the fire, and asked
what they ought to do.

Aunt Barbara did not know. She was too much bewildered to think of
anything just then, and after ordering the four o'clock dinner, which,
she knew, would suit her sister's habits better than an earlier one,
she, too, sat quietly down by the fire with her knitting lying idly in
her lap, and her eyes looking dreamily through the frosty panes off upon
the snowy hills where Ethelyn used to play. Occasionally, in reply to
some question of her sister's, she would tell what she herself saw in
that prairie home, and then look up amazed at the exasperating effect it
seemed to have upon Mrs. Dr. Van Buren. That lady was terrible incensed
against the whole Markham race, for through them she had been touched on
a tender point. Ethie's desertion of her husband would not be wholly
excused by the world; there was odium attaching to such a step, however
great the provocation, and the disgrace was what Mrs. Van Buren would
feel most keenly. That a Bigelow should do so was very humiliating; and,
by way of fortifying herself with reasons for the step, she slandered
and abused the Markhams until they would hardly have recognized the
remotest relationship between themselves and the "terrible creatures"
whom the great lady from Boston dissected so mercilessly that afternoon
in Chicopee.

It was nearly four o'clock now, and the dinner was almost ready. Aunt
Barbara had dropped her knitting upon the floor, where the ball was at
once claimed as the lawful prey of Tabby, who rolled, and kicked, and
tangled the yarn in a perfect abandon of feline delight. Mrs. Van Buren
having exhausted herself, if not her topic, sat rocking quietly, and
occasionally giving little sniffs of inquiry as t