ple who have seen their dearest plans come to naught, she failed to
ascribe the trouble to herself, but charged it all to Richard. He was
the one in fault; and by the time the letter was finished the Bigelow
blood was at a boiling pitch, and for a polished lady, Mrs. Dr. Van
Buren, of Boston, raised her voice pretty high as she asked: "Did you
presume, sir, to think that my son--mine--a married man--would make an
appointment with Ethie, a married woman? You must have a strange
misconception of the manner in which he was brought up! But it is all of
a piece with the rest of your abominable treatment of Ethelyn. I wonder
the poor girl stayed with you as long as she did. Think of it, Barbara!
Accused her of going to meet Frank by appointment, and then locked her
up to keep her at home, and she a Bigelow!"

This was the first inkling Aunt Barbara had of what was in the letter.
She was, however, certain that Frank was in some way involved in the
matter, and anxious to know the worst, she said, beseechingly:

"Tell me something, do. I can't read it, for my eyes are dim-like
to-night."

They were full of unshed tears--the kind old eyes, which did not grow
one whit sterner or colder as Mrs. Van Buren explained, to some extent,
what was in the letter; reading a little, telling a little, and skipping
a little where Frank was especially concerned, until Aunt Barbara had a
pretty correct idea of the whole. Matters had been worse than she
supposed, Ethie more unhappy, and knowing her as she did, she was not
surprised that at the last she ran away; but she did not say so--she
merely sat grieved and helpless, while her sister took up the cudgels in
Ethelyn's defense, and, attacking Richard at every point, left him no
quarter at all. She did not pretend that Ethie was faultless or perfect,
she said, but surely, if mortal ever had just provocation for leaving
her husband, she had.

"Her marriage was a great mistake," she said; "and I must say, Mr.
Markham, that you did very wrong to take her where you did without a
word of preparation. You ought to have told her what she was to expect;
then, if she chose to go, very well. But neither she nor I had any idea
of the reality; and the change must have been terrible to her. For my
part, I can conceive of nothing worse than to be obliged to live with
people whom even sister Barbara called 'Hottentots,' when she came home
from Iowa."

"Not Hottentots," mildly interposed Aunt Barbara. "Phil