deal of curiosity with regard to Miss Nettie, whom she had never seen; neither had she met Frank since the dissolution of their engagement, for though she had been in Boston, where most of her dresses were made, Mrs. Dr. Van Buren had wisely arranged that Frank should be absent from home.  She was herself not willing to risk a meeting between him and Ethelyn until matters were too well adjusted to admit of a change, for Frank had more than once shown signs of rebellion.  He was in a more quiescent state now, having made up his mind that what could not be cured must be endured, and as he had sensibility enough to feel very keenly the awkwardness of meeting Ethelyn under present circumstances, and as Miss Nettie was really very fond of him, and he, after a fashion, was fond of her, he was in the best of spirits when he stepped from the train at West Chicopee and handed his mother and Nettie into the spacious carryall of which he had made fun as a country ark, while they rode slowly toward Aunt Barbara Bigelow’s.  Everything was in readiness for them.  The large north chamber was aired and swept and dusted, and only little bars of light came through the closed shutters, and the room looked very cool and nice, with its fresh muslin curtains looped back with blue, its carpet of the same cool shade, its pretty chestnut furniture, its snowbank of a bed, and the tasteful bouquets which Ethelyn had arranged—­Ethelyn, who lingered longer in this room than the other one across the hall, the bridal chamber, where the ribbons which held the curtains were white, and the polished marble of the bureau and washstand, sent a shiver through her veins whenever she looked in there.  She was in her own cozy chamber now, and the silken hair, which in the early morning had been twisted under her net, was bound in heavy braids about her head, while a pearl comb held it in its place, and a half-opened rose was fastened just behind her ear.  She had hesitated some time in her choice of a dress, vacillating between a pale buff, which Frank had always admired, and a delicate blue muslin, in which Judge Markham had once said she looked so pretty.  The blue had won the day, for Ethelyn felt that she owed some concession to the man whose kind note she had treated so cavalierly that morning, and so she wore the blue for him, feeling glad of the faint, sick feeling which kept the blood from rushing too hotly to her face, and made her fairer and paler than her wont.  She knew that she was very handsome when her toilet was made, and that was one secret of the assurance with which she went forward to meet Nettie Hudson when at last the carryall stopped before the gate.