With regard to the candles Aunt Barbara did not know; the sleeping in the kitchen she denied, and the footed stockings she admitted; saying, however, those she saw were black, rather than blue.  Black or blue, it was all the same to Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, whose feet seldom came in contact with anything heavier than silk or the softest of lamb’s wool; and, had there been wanting other evidence of Mrs. Markham’s vulgarity, the stocking question would have settled the matter with her.

“Poor Ethie!” she sighed, as she drew her seat to the fire, and asked what they ought to do.

Aunt Barbara did not know.  She was too much bewildered to think of anything just then, and after ordering the four o’clock dinner, which, she knew, would suit her sister’s habits better than an earlier one, she, too, sat quietly down by the fire with her knitting lying idly in her lap, and her eyes looking dreamily through the frosty panes off upon the snowy hills where Ethelyn used to play.  Occasionally, in reply to some question of her sister’s, she would tell what she herself saw in that prairie home, and then look up amazed at the exasperating effect it seemed to have upon Mrs. Dr. Van Buren.  That lady was terrible incensed against the whole Markham race, for through them she had been touched on a tender point.  Ethie’s desertion of her husband would not be wholly excused by the world; there was odium attaching to such a step, however great the provocation, and the disgrace was what Mrs. Van Buren would feel most keenly.  That a Bigelow should do so was very humiliating; and, by way of fortifying herself with reasons for the step, she slandered and abused the Markhams until they would hardly have recognized the remotest relationship between themselves and the “terrible creatures” whom the great lady from Boston dissected so mercilessly that afternoon in Chicopee.

It was nearly four o’clock now, and the dinner was almost ready.  Aunt Barbara had dropped her knitting upon the floor, where the ball was at once claimed as the lawful prey of Tabby, who rolled, and kicked, and tangled the yarn in a perfect abandon of feline delight.  Mrs. Van Buren having exhausted herself, if not her topic, sat rocking quietly, and occasionally giving little sniffs of inquiry as to whether the tomatoes were really burned or not.  If they were, there were still the silver-skinned onions left; and, as Mrs. Van Buren was one who thought a great deal of what she ate, she was anticipating her dinner with a keen relish, and wishing Barbara and Betty would hurry, when a buggy stopped before the door, and, with a start of disagreeable surprise, she recognized Richard Markham coming through the gate, and up the walk to the front door.  He was looking very pale and worn, for to the effects of his recent illness were added traces of his rapid, fatiguing journey, and he almost staggered as he came into the room.  It was not in kind Aunt Barbara’s nature to feel resentment toward him then, and she went to him at once, as she would have gone to Ethie, and, taking his hand in hers, said softly: