The mother nature was in the ascendant, and for a moment resented the suspicion against her son, even though that suspicion had been in her own mind when Frank returned from Camden with the news of Ethie’s flight.  That he had had something to do with it was her first fear, until convinced to the contrary; and now she blamed Aunt Barbara 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 in Olney—­she says the mother is the most peculiar and old-fashioned woman imaginable; actually wears blue yarn stockings, footed with black, makes her own candles, and sleeps in the kitchen.”