ara for
harboring the same thought. As soon as possible she told all she had
heard from Frank, and then went on with her invectives against the
Markhams generally, and Richard in particular, and her endless surmises
as to where Ethelyn had gone, and what was the final cause of her going.

For a time Aunt Barbara turned a deaf ear to what she was saying,
thinking only of Ethie, gone; Ethie, driven to such strait, that she
must either run away or die; Ethie, the little brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked,
willful, imperious girl, whom she loved so much for the very willful
imperiousness which always went hand in hand with such pretty fits of
penitence, and sorrow, and remorse for the misdeed, that not to love her
was impossible. Where was she now, and why had she not come at once to
the dear old home, where she would have been so welcome until such time
as matters could be adjusted on a more amicable basis?

For Aunt Barbara, though in taking Ethie's side altogether, had no
thought that the separation should be final. She had chosen a life of
celibacy because she preferred it, and found it a very smooth and
pleasant one, especially after Ethie came and brought the sunshine of
joyous childhood to her quiet home; but "those whom God had joined
together" were bound to continue so, she firmly believed; and had Ethie
come to her with her tale of sorrow, she would have listened kindly to
it, poured in the balm of sympathy and love, and then, if possible,
restored her to her husband. Of all this she thought during the few
minutes Mrs. Dr. Van Buren talked, and she sat passive in her chair,
where she had dropped, with her dumpy little hands lying so helplessly
in her lap, and her cap all awry, as Tabby had made it when purring and
rubbing against it.

"Then, you have not seen her, or heard a word?" Mrs. Van Buren asked;
and in a kind of uncertain way, as if she wondered what they were
talking about, Aunt Barbara replied:

"No, I have not seen her, and I don't know, I am sure, what made the
child go off without letting us know."

"She was driven to it by the pack of heathens around her," Mrs. Dr. Van
Buren retorted, feeling a good deal guilty herself for having been
instrumental in bringing about this unhappy match, and in proportion as
she felt guilty, seizing with avidity any other offered cause for
Ethie's wretchedness. "I've heard even more about them than you told
me," she went on to say. "There was Mrs. Ellis, whose cousin lives i