."

Involuntarily Ethie's hand rested itself on the chair where Richard had
sat, and Ethie's face crimsoned where Aunt Barbara asked:

"Do you love Richard now?"

"I cannot tell. I only know that I have dreamed of him so many, many
times, and thought it would be such perfect rest to put my tired head in
his lap, as I never did put it. When I was on the ocean, coming home,
there was a fearful storm, and I prayed so earnestly to live till I
could hear him say that he forgave me for all the trouble I have caused
him. I might not love him if I were to see him again just as he used to
be. Sometimes I think I should not, but I would try. Write to him,
auntie, please, and tell him I am here, but nothing more. Don't say I
want to see him, or that I am changed from the willful, high-tempered
Ethie who made him so unhappy, for perhaps I am not."

A while then they talked of Aunt Van Buren, and Frank, and Nettie, and
Susie Granger, who was married to a missionary and gone to heathen
lands; and the clock was striking one before Aunt Barbara lighted her
darling up to the old room, and kissing her good-night, went back to
weep glad tears of joy in the rocking-chair by the hearth, and to thank
her Heavenly Father for sending home her long lost Ethelyn.

CHAPTER XXXI

MRS. DR. VAN BUREN

She was always tossing up just when she was not wanted, Ethie used to
say in the olden days, when she saw the great lady alighting at the gate
in time to interfere with and spoil some favorite project arranged for
the day, and she certainly felt it, if she did not say it, when, on the
morning following her arrival in Chicopee she heard Betty exclaim, "If
there ain't Miss Van Buren! I wonder what sent her here!"

Ethie wondered so, too, and drawing the blanket closer around her
shoulders (for she had taken advantage of her fatigue and languor to lie
very late in bed) she wished her aunt had stayed in Boston, for a little
time at least.

It had been very delightful, waking up in the dear old room and seeing
Betty's kind face bending over her--Betty, who had heard of her young
mistress' return with a gush of glad tears, and then at once bethought
herself as to what there was nice for the wanderer to eat. Just as she
used to do when Ethie was a young lady at home, Betty had carried her
pan of coals and kindlings into the chamber where Ethie was lying, and
kneeling on the hearth had made the cheerfulest of fires, while Ethie,
with half-closed