Richard did not say, "Aunt Sophia or Aunt Barbara be hanged, or
be--anything," but he thought it, just as he thought Ethelyn's ideas
particular and over-nice. Eunice Plympton was a respectable, trusty
girl, and he believed in doing well for those who did well for him; but
that was no time to argue the point, and so he sat still and listened to
Ethelyn's complaint that Eunice had called him Richard, and would
undoubtedly on the morrow address her as Ethelyn. Richard thought not,
but changed his mind when, fifteen minutes later, he descended to the
kitchen and heard Eunice asking Andy if he did not think "Ethelyn looked
like the Methodist minister's new wife."

This was an offense which even Richard could not suffer to pass
unrebuked, and sending Andy out on some pretext or other, he said that
to Eunice Plympton which made her more careful as to what she called his
wife, but he did it so kindly that she could not be offended with him,
though she was strengthened in her opinion that "Miss Ethelyn was a
stuck-up, an upstart, and a hateful. Supposin' she had been waited on
all her life, and brought up delicately, as Richard said, that was no
reason why she need feel so big, and above speaking to a poor girl when
she was introduced." She guessed that "Eunice Plympton was fully as
respectable and quite as much thought on by the neighbors, if she didn't
wear a frock coat and a man's hat with a green feather stuck in it."

This was the substance of Eunice's soliloquy, as she cleaned the
potatoes for the morrow's breakfast, and laid the kindlings by the
stove, ready for the morning fire. Still Eunice was not a bad-hearted
girl, and when Andy, who heard her mutterings, put in a plea for
Ethelyn, who he said "had never been so far away from home before, and
whose head was aching enough to split," she began to relent, and
proposed, of her own accord, to take up to the great lady a foot-bath
together with hot water for her head.

It was so long since Richard had been at home, and there was so much to
hear of what had happened during his absence that instead of going back
to Ethelyn he yielded to his mother's wish that he should stay with her,
and sitting down in his arm-chair by the blazing fire, he found it so
pleasant to be flattered and caressed and deferred to again, that he was
in some danger of forgetting the young wife who was thus left to the
tender mercies of Andy and Eunice Plympton. Andy had caught eagerly at
Eunice's