Eunice’s had done.  She would not dip candles, she said, nor burn them, either, except as a matter of convenience to carry around the house; and so the tallows gave way to kerosene, and as Melinda liked a great deal of light, the house was sometimes illuminated so brilliantly that poor Mrs. Markham had either to shade her eyes with her hands, or turn her back to the lamp.  She never thought of opposing Melinda; that would have done no good; and she succumbed with the rest to the will which was ruling them so effectually and so well.

Some very plain talks Melinda had with Richard with regard to Ethelyn; and Richard, when he saw how anxious James was to please his wife, even in little things which he had once thought of no consequence, regretted so much that his own course had not been different with Ethelyn.  “Poor, dear Ethie,” he called her to himself, as he sat alone at night in the room where she used to be.  At first he had freely talked of her with his family.  That was when, like Aunt Barbara, they were expecting her back, or rather expecting constantly to hear from her through Aunt Barbara.  She would go to Chicopee first, they felt assured, and then Aunt Barbara would write, and Richard would start at once.  How many castles he built to that second bringing her home, where Melinda made everything so pleasant, and where she could be happy for a little time, when they would go where she liked—­it did not matter where.  Richard was willing for anything, only he did want her to stay a little time at the farmhouse, just to see how they had improved, and to learn that his mother could be kind if she tried.  She meant to be so if Ethelyn ever came back, for she had said as much to him on the receipt of Ethie’s message, sent in Andy’s letter, and her tears had fallen fast as she confessed to not always having felt or acted right toward the young girl.  With Melinda the ruling spirit they would have made it very pleasant for Ethelyn, and they waited for her so anxiously all through the autumnal days till early winter snow covered the prairies, and the frost was on the window panes, and the wind howled dismally past the door, just as it did one year ago, when Ethelyn went away.  But, alas no Ethie came, or tidings of her either, and Richard ceased to speak of her at last, and his face wore so sad a look whenever she was mentioned that the family stopped talking of her; or, if they spoke her name, it was as they spoke of Daisy, or of one that was dead.

For a time Richard kept up a correspondence with Aunt Barbara; but that, too, gradually ceased, and as his uncle, the old colonel, died in the spring, and the widow went to her friends in Philadelphia, he seemed to be cut off from any connections with Chicopee, and but for the sad, harassing memory of what had been, he was to all intents and purposes the same grave, silent bachelor as of yore, following the bent of his own inclinations, coming and going as he liked, sought after by those who wished for an honest man to transact their business, and growing gradually more and more popular with the people of his own and the adjoining counties.