when Ethelyn entered Mrs. Markham’s parlor; one foot was carelessly crossed over the other, so that only the toe of the boot touched the carpet, while his hand grasped his large handkerchief rather awkwardly.  He was not at ease with the ladies; he had never been very much accustomed to their society.  He did not know what to say to them, and Susie’s saucy black eyes and sprightly manner evidently embarrassed and abashed him.  That vocabulary of small talk so prevalent in society, and a limited knowledge of which is rather necessary to one’s getting on well with everybody, were unknown to him, and he was casting about for some way to escape from his companion, when Ethelyn was introduced, and his mind went back to the stolen apples and the torn dress which he had pinned together.

Judge Markham was a tall, finely formed man, with deep hazel eyes, which could be very stern or very soft in their expression, just as his mood happened to be.  But the chief attraction of his face was his smile, which changed his entire expression, making him very handsome, as Ethelyn thought, when he stood for a moment holding her hand between both his broad palms and chatting familiarly with her as with an old acquaintance.  He could talk to her better than to Susie Granger, for Ethie, though neither very deep nor learned, was fond of books and tolerably well versed in the current literature of the day.  Besides that, she had a faculty of seeming to know more than she really did and so the impression left upon the Judge’s mind, when the little party was over and he had returned from escorting Ethelyn to her door, was that Miss Grant was far superior to any girl he had ever met since Daisy died, and like the Judge in Whittier’s “Maud Muller,” he whistled snatches of an old love tune he had not whistled in years, as he went slowly back to his uncle’s, and thought strange thoughts for him, the grave old bachelor who had said he should never marry.  He was not looking for a wife, as rumor intimated, but he dreamed of Ethelyn Grant that night, and called upon her the next day, and the next, until the village began to gossip, and Mrs. Dr. Van Buren was in an ecstasy of delight, talking openly of the delightful time her niece would have in Washington the next winter, and predicting for her a brilliant career as reigning belle, and even hinting the possibility of her taking a house so as to entertain her Boston friends.

And Ethelyn herself had many and varied feelings on the subject, the strangest of which was a perverse desire to let Frank know that she did not care—­that her heart was not broken by his desertion, and that there were those who prized her even if he did not.  She had criticised Judge Markham very severely.  She had weighed him in the balance with Frank, and found him sadly, wanting in all those little points which she considered as marks of culture and good breeding.  He was not a ladies’ man; he was even worse than that, for he was sometimes positively