t the flutter of a white robe
through the open door. Ethelyn was very pretty in her cool, cambric
dress, with a bunch of sweet English violets in her hair; and at sight
of her the man usually so grave and quiet, and undemonstrative with
those of the opposite sex, felt all his reserve give way, and there was
a world of tenderness in his voice and a misty look in his eye, as he
bent over her, giving her the second kiss he had ever given to her, and
asking, "How is my darling to-night?"

She did not take his arm from her neck this time--he had a right to keep
it there--and she suffered the caress, feeling no greater inconvenience
than that his big hand was very warm and pressed a little too hard
sometimes upon her shoulders. He spoke to her of the errand on which he
had come, and the great, warm hand pressed more heavily as he said, "It
seems to me all a dream that in a few days you will be my own Ethie, my
wife, from whom I need not be parted"; and then he spoke of his mother
and his three brothers, James, and John, and Anderson, or Andy, as he
was called. Each of these had sent kindly messages to Richard's
bride--the mother saying she should be glad to have a daughter in her
home, and the three brothers promising to love their new sister so much
as to make "old Dick" jealous, if possible.

These messages "old Dick" delivered, but wisely refrained from telling
how his mother feared he had not chosen wisely, that a young lady with
Boston notions was not the wife to make a Western man very happy.
Neither did he tell her of an interview he had with Mrs. Jones, who had
always evinced a motherly care over him since her daughter's death, and
to whom he had dutifully communicated the news of his intended marriage.
It was not what Mrs. Jones had expected. She had watched Richard's
upward progress with all the pride of a mother-in-law, lamenting often
to Mrs. Markham that poor Abigail could not have lived to share his
greatness, and during the term of his judgeship, when he stayed mostly
in Camden, the county seat, she had, on the occasion of her going to
town with butter and eggs, and chickens, taken a mournful pleasure in
perambulating the streets, and selecting the house where Abigail might,
perhaps, have resided, and where she could have had her cup of young
hyson after the fatigue of the day, instead of eating her dry lunch of
cheese and fried cakes in the rather comfortless depot, while waiting
for the train. Richard's long