at home, while his heart beat with keen throbs of pain when he remembered that Ethie’s first love was not given to him—­that she would have gone to her grave more willingly than she went with him to the altar; but he need not have been so harsh with her—­that was no way to make her love him.  Kindness must win her back should she ever be won, and impatient to be reconciled, if reconciliation were now possible, Richard chafed at the necessary delays which kept him a day longer in St. Louis than he had at first intended.

Ethie had been gone just a week when he at last found himself in the train which would take him back to Camden.  First, however, he must stop at Olney; the case was imperative—­and so he stepped from the train one snowy afternoon when the February light shone cold and blue upon the little town and the farmhouse beyond.  His brothers were feeding their flocks and herds in the rear yard to the east; but they came at once to greet him, and ask after his welfare.  The light snow which had fallen that day was lying upon the front door-steps undisturbed by any track, so Richard entered at the side.  Mrs. Markham was dipping candles, and the faint, sickly odor of the hot melted tallow, which filled Richard’s olfactories as he came in, was never forgotten, but remembered as part and parcel of that terrible day which would have a place in his memory so long as being lasted.  Every little thing was impressed upon his mind, and came up afterward with vivid distinctness whenever he thought of that wretched time.  There was a bit of oilcloth on the floor near to the dripping candles, and he saw the spots of tallow which had dropped and dried upon it—­saw, too, his mother’s short red gown and blue woolen stockings, as she got up to meet him, and smelled the cabbage cooking on the stove, for they were having a late dinner that day—­the boys’ favorite, and what Mrs. Markham designated as a “dish of biled vittles.”

Richard had seen his mother dip candles before—­nay, had sometimes assisted at the dipping.  He had seen her short striped gown and blue woolen stockings, and smelled the cooking cabbage, but they never struck him with so great a sense of discomfort as they did to-day when he stood, hat in hand, wondering why home seemed so cheerless.  It was as if the shadow of the great shock awaiting him had already fallen upon him, oppressing him with a weight he could not well shake off.  He had no thought that any harm had come to Ethie, and yet his first question was for her.  Had his mother heard from her while he was away, or did she know if she was well?

Mrs. Markham’s under jaw dropped, in the way peculiar to her when at all irritated, but she did not answer at once; she waited a moment, while she held the rod poised over the iron kettle, and with her forefinger deliberately separated any of the eight candles which showed a disposition to stick together; then depositing them upon the frame and taking up another rod, she said: