r, till they came to the door of Richard's room, which
Hannah had left open. Then for a moment Ethelyn hesitated. It seemed
almost like a sacrilege for her feet to tread the floor of that private
room, for her breath to taint the atmosphere of a spot where the new
wife would come. But Mrs. Dobson led her on until she stood in the
center of Richard's room, surrounded by the unmistakable paraphernalia
of a man, with so many things around her to remind her of the past.
Surely, this was her own furniture; the very articles he had chosen for
the room in Camden. It was kind in Richard to keep and bring them here,
where everything was so much more elegant--kind, too, in him to redeem
her piano. It showed that for a time, at least, he had remembered her;
but alas! he had forgotten her now, when she wanted his love so much.
There were great blurring tears in her eyes, and she could not
distinctly see the picture on the walk which Mrs. Dobson said was the
first Mrs. Markham, asking if she was not a beauty.

"Rather pretty, yes," Ethie said, making a great effort to speak
naturally, and adding after a moment: "I suppose it will be taken down
when the other Mrs. Markham comes."

In Mrs. Dobson's mind the other Mrs. Markham only meant Melinda, and she
replied:

"Why should it? She knows it is here. She knew the other lady and liked
her, too."

"She knew me? Who can it be?" Ethie asked herself, remembering that the
name she had heard at Clifton was a strange one to her.

"This, now, is the very handsomest part of the whole house," Mrs. Dobson
said, throwing open a door which led from Richard's room into a suite of
apartments which, to Ethie's bewildered gaze, seemed more like fairyland
than anything real she had ever seen. "This the governor fitted up
expressly for his wife and I'm told he spent more money here than in all
the upper rooms. Did you ever see handsomer lace? He sent to New York
for them," she said, lifting up one of the exquisitely wrought curtains
festooned across the arch which divided the boudoir from the large
sleeping room beyond. "This I call the bridal chamber," she continued,
stepping into the room where everything was so pure and white. "But,
bless me, I forgot that I put on a lot of bottles to heat: I'll venture
they are every one of them shivered to atoms. Hannah is so careless.
Excuse me, will you, and entertain yourself a while. I reckon you can
find your way back to the parlor."

Ethelyn wanted noth