“Isn’t he handsome?” Ethelyn had asked, and Frank had answered, “Looks well enough, though anybody with half an eye would know he was a codger from the West.  His pants are a great deal too short; and look at his coat—­at least three years behind the fashion; and such a hat, with that rusty old band of crape around it.  Wonder if he is in mourning for his grandmother.  Oh, my! we boys would hoot him in Boston.  He’s what I call a gawky.”

That settled it with Ethelyn.  If fourteen-year-old Frank Van Buren, whose pants and coats and neckties and hats were always the latest make, said that Richard Markham was a gawky, he was one, and henceforth during his stay in Chicopee, the Western young man was regarded by Ethelyn with a feeling akin to pity for his benighted condition.  Aunt Barbara’s pew was very near to Captain Markham’s, and Richard, who was not much of a churchman, and as often as any way lounged upon the faded damask curtains, instead of standing up, often met Ethelyn’s brown eyes fixed curiously upon him, but never dreamed that she regarded him as a species of heathen, whom it would be a pious act to Christianize.  Richard rarely thought of himself at all, or if he did, it was with a feeling that he “was well enough “; that if his mother and “the neighbors” were satisfied with him, as he knew they were, he ought to be satisfied with himself.  So he had no suspicion of the severe criticism passed upon him by the little girl who read the service so womanly, he thought, eating caraway and lozenges between times, and whose face he carried in memory back to his prairie home, associating her always with the graceful dark-brown heifer bearing so strong a resemblance to the cow which had so frightened Ethelyn on the day of his first introduction to her.

But he forgot her in the excitement which followed, when he began to grow rapidly, as only Western men can grow, and we doubt if she had been in his mind for years until her name was mentioned by Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, who saw in him a most eligible match for her niece.  He was well connected—­own nephew to Captain Markham, and first cousin to Mrs. Senator Woodhull, of New York, who kept a suite of servants for herself and husband, and had the finest turn-out in the Park.  Yes, he would do nicely for Ethelyn and by way of quieting her conscience, which kept whispering that she had not been altogether just to her niece, Mrs. Dr. Van Buren packed her trunk and took the train for Chicopee the very day of Mrs. Captain Markham’s tea party.

Ethelyn was going, and she looked very pretty in her dark-green silk, with the bit of soft, rich lace at the throat and the scarlet ribbon in her hair.  She was not dressed for effect.  She cared very little, in fact, what impression she made upon the Western Judge, though she did wonder if, as a Judge, he was much improved from the raw young man whom Frank had called a “gawky.”  He was standing with his elbow upon the mantel talking to Susie Granger,