For a time the stillness and quiet of Olney were very acceptable to him, and then he began to long for more excitement—­something to divert his mind from the harrowing fear, daily growing more and more certain, that Ethie would never come back.  It was four years since she went away, and nothing had been heard from her since the letter sent to Andy from New York.  “Dead,” he said to himself many a time, and but for the dread of the hereafter, he, too, would gladly have lain down in the graveyard where Daisy was sleeping so quietly.  With Andy it was different.  Ethie was not dead—­he knew she was not—­and some time she would surely come back, There was comfort in Andy’s strong assurance, and Richard always felt better after a talk with his hopeful brother.  Perhaps she would come back, and if so he must have a place worthy of her, he said, one day, to Melinda, who seized the opportunity to unfold a plan she had long been cogitating.  During the two years spent in Des Moines, James had devoted himself to the study of law, preferring it to his farming, and now he was looking out for a good locality where to settle and practice his profession.

“Let’s go together somewhere and build a house,” Melinda said.  “You know Ethie’s taste.  You can fashion it as you think she would like it, and meantime we will live with you and see to you a little.  You need some looking after,” and Melinda laid her hand half pityingly upon the bowed head of her brother-in-law, who, but for her strong, upholding influence, and Andy’s cheering faith, would have sunk ere this into hopeless despondency.

Melinda was a fine specimen of true womanhood.  She had met many highly cultivated people at Des Moines and other towns, where, as the governor’s sister-in-law, she had spent more or less of the last two years, and as nothing ever escaped her notice, she had improved wonderfully, until even Mrs. Van Buren, of Boston, would have been proud of her acquaintance.  She had known sorrow, too; for in the cemetery at Des Moines she had left her little blue-eyed baby boy when only six months old, and her mother’s heart had ached to its very core, until there came another child, a little girl, this time, whom they had christened “Ethelyn Grant,” and who, on this account, was quite as dear to Richard as to either of its parents.  Richard was happier with that little brown-haired girl than with anyone else, and when Melinda suggested they should go together somewhere, he assented readily, mentioning Davenport as a place where Ethelyn had many times said she would like to live.  Now, as ever, Melinda’s was the active, ruling voice, and almost before Richard knew it, he was in Davenport and bargaining for a vacant lot which overlooked the river and much of the country beyond.  Davenport suited them all, and by September, Melinda, who had spent the summer with her mother, was located at a hotel and making herself very useful to Richard with her suggestions with regard to the palatial mansion he was building.