ith
regard to her behavior as daughter-in-law; but she made no reply, not
even to ask what the peculiarities were which she was to humor. She
really did not care what they were, as she fully intended having an
establishment of her own in the thriving prairie village, just half a
mile from her husband's home. She should probably spend a few weeks with
Mrs. Markham, senior, whom she fancied a tall, stately woman, wearing
heavy black silk dresses and thread lace caps on great occasions, and
having always on hand some fine lamb's-wool knitting work when she sat
in the parlor where Daisy's picture hung. Ethelyn could not tell why it
was that she always saw Richard's mother thus, unless it were what Mrs.
Captain Markham once said with regard to her Western sister-in-law,
sending to Boston for a black silk which cost three dollars per yard--a
great price for those days--and for two yards of handsome thread lace,
which she, the Mrs. Captain, had run all over the city to get, "John's
wife was so particular to have it just the pattern and width she
described in her letter."

This was Richard's mother as Ethelyn saw her, while the house on the
prairie, which she knew had been built within a few years, presented a
very respectable appearance to her mind's eye, being large, and
fashioned something after the new house across the Common, which had a
bay window at the side, and a kind of cupola on the roof. It would be
quite possible to spend a few weeks comfortably there, especially as she
would have the Washington gayeties in prospect, but in the spring, when,
after a winter of dissipation she returned to the prairies, she should
go to her own home, either in Olney or Camden; the latter, perhaps, as
Richard could as well live there as elsewhere. This was Ethelyn's plan,
but she kept it to herself, and changing the conversation from Richard's
mother and her peculiarities, she talked instead of the places they were
to visit--Quebec and Montreal, the seaside and the mountains, and lastly
that great Babel of fashion, Saratoga, for which place several of her
dresses had been expressly made.

Ethelyn had planned this trip herself, and Richard, though knowing how
awfully he should be bored before the summer was over, had assented to
all that she proposed, secretly hoping the while that the last days of
August would find him safe at home in Olney among his books, his horses,
and his farming pursuits. He was very tired that night, and he did