“It was no one thing which made her go, but the culmination of many.  There was a mistake on my part.  I thought her guilty when she was not, and charged her with it in a passion, saying things I would give much to recall.  This was one night, and she went the next, before her temper had time to cool.  You know she was a little hasty herself at times.”

“Perhaps so, though her temper never troubled me any.  On the whole, I think her temper amiable and mild in disposition as people generally are,” Mrs. Van Buren replied, forgetting, or choosing to forget, the many occasions on which even she had shrunk from the fire which blazed in Ethie’s eyes when that young lady was fully roused.

But Aunt Barbara had either more conscience or a better memory, and in a manner half apologetic for her interference, she said:  “Yes, Sophia, Richard is right.  Ethie had a temper—­at least she was very decided.  Don’t you remember when she broke the cut glass fruit dish, because she could not have any more pineapple?”

“Barbara!” Mrs. Dr. Van Buren exclaimed, her voice indicating her surprise that her sister should so far forget herself as to reveal any secrets of the family, and especially any which could be brought to bear upon Ethelyn.

Aunt Barbara felt the implied rebuke, and while her sweet, old face crimsoned with mortification, she said:  “Truth is truth, Sophia.  Ethie is as dear to me as to you, but she was high-tempered, and did break the big fruit bowl, and then denied herself sweetmeats of all kinds, and even went without sugar in her coffee and butter on her bread until she had saved enough to buy another in its place.  Ethie was generous and noble after it was all over, if she was a little hot at times.  That’s what I was going to say when you stopped me so sudden.”

Aunt Barbara looked a little aggrieved at being caught up so quickly by her sister, who continued:  “She was a Bigelow, and everybody knows what kind of blood that is.  She was too sensitive, and had too nice a perception of what was proper to be thrown among”—­heathen, she was going to add, but something in Aunt Barbara’s blue eyes kept her in check, and so she abruptly turned to Richard and asked, “Did she leave no message, no reason why she went?”

Richard could have boasted his Markham blood had he chosen, and the white heats to which that was capable of being roused; but he was too utterly broken to feel more than a passing flash of resentment for anything which had yet been said, and after a moment’s thought, during which he was considering the propriety of showing Mrs. Van Buren what Ethie had written of Frank, he held the letter to her, saying, “She left this.  Read it if you like.  It’s a part of my punishment, I suppose, that her friends should know all.”