ngs around her
eyes, showing that she suffered, even if Mrs. Markham did assert there
was nothing ailed her but spleen.

At last Andy blurted out: "I am sorry for you, Ethelyn, for I know it
must be bad to have your man go off and leave you all alone, when you
wanted to go with him. Jim and John and me talked it up to-day when we
was out to work, and we think you orto have gone with Dick. It must be
lonesome staying here, and you only six months married. I wish, and the
boys wishes, we could do something to chirk you up."

With the exception of what Eunice had said, these were the first words
of sympathy Ethelyn had heard, and her tears flowed at once, while her
slight form shook with such a tempest of sobs that Andy was alarmed,
and getting down on his knees beside her, begged of her to tell him what
was the matter. Had he hurt her feelings? he was such a blunderin'
critter, he never knew the right thing to say, and if she liked he'd go
straight off downstairs.

"No, Anderson," Ethelyn said, "you have not hurt my feelings, and I do
not wish you to go, but, oh, I am so wretched and so disappointed, too!"

"About goin' to Washington, you mean?" Andy asked, resuming his chair,
and his attitude of earnest inquiry, while Ethelyn, forgetting all her
reserve, replied: "Yes, I mean that and everything else. It has been
nothing but disappointment ever since I left Chicopee, and I sometimes
wish I had died before I promised to go away from dear Aunt Barbara's,
where I was so happy."

"What made you promise, then? I suppose, though, it was because you
loved Dick so much," simple-minded Andy said, trying to remember if
there was not a passage somewhere which read, "For this cause shall a
man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain
shall be one flesh."

Ethelyn would not wound Andy by telling him how little love had had to
do with her unhappy marriage, and she remained silent for a moment,
while Andy continued, "Be you disappointed here--with us, I mean, and
the fixins?"

"Yes, Anderson, terribly disappointed. Nothing is as I supposed. Richard
never told me what I was to expect," Ethelyn replied, without stopping
to consider what she was saying.

For a moment Andy looked intently at her, as if trying to make out her
meaning. Then, as it in part dawned upon him, he said sorrowfully:
"Sister Ethie, if it's me you mean, I was more to blame than Dick, for I
asked him not to tell you I was--a--a--wall,