ing a headache, from which she was really suffering,
she asked to go to her room as soon as dinner was over.

It was very pleasant up there, for a cheerful wood fire was blazing on
the hearth, and a rocking-chair drawn up before it, with a footstool
which Andy had made and Melinda covered, while the bed in the little
room adjoining looked so fresh, and clean, and inviting, that with a
great sigh of relief, as the door closed between her and the "dreadful
people below," Ethelyn threw herself upon it, and burying her face in
the soft pillows, tried to smother the sobs which, nevertheless, smote
heavily upon Richard's ear when he came in, and drove from him all
thoughts of the little lecture he had been intending to give Ethelyn
touching her deportment toward his folks. It would only be a fair
return, he reflected, for all the Caudles he had listened to so
patiently, and duly strengthened for his task by his mother's remark to
James, accidentally overheard, "Altogether too fine a lady for us. I
wonder what Richard was thinking of," he mounted the stairs resolved at
least to talk with Ethie and ask her to do better.

Richard could be very stern when he tried, and the hazel of his eye was
darker than usual, and the wrinkle between his eyebrows was deeper as he
thus meditated harm against his offending wife. But the sight of the
crushed form lying so helplessly upon the bed and crying in such a
grieved, heart-sick way, drove all thoughts of discipline from his mind.
He could not add one iota to her misery. She might be cold, and proud,
and even rude to his family, as she unquestionably had been, but she was
still Ethie, his young wife, whom he loved so dearly; and bending over
her, he smoothed the silken bands of her beautiful hair and said to her
softly, "What is it, darling? Anything worse than homesickness? Has
anyone injured you?"

No one had injured her. On the contrary, all had met, or tried to meet
her with kindness, which she had thrust back upon them. Ethelyn knew
this as well as anyone, and Mrs. Markham, washing her dishes below
stairs, and occasionally wiping her eyes with the corner of the check
apron as she thought how all her trouble had been thrown away upon a
proud, ungrateful girl, could not think less of Ethie than Ethie thought
of herself, upstairs sobbing among the pillows. The family were ignorant
and ill bred, as she counted ignorance and ill breeding; but they did
mean to be kind to her, and she hated