She was just as pure and gentle and good as blue-eyed Daisy had been, and on the manly face turned so wistfully to the eastward there was a world of love and tenderness for the Ethie who, alas, did not deserve it then, and to whom a few weeks later he gave his mother’s kindly message.  Then, remembering what Mrs. Jones had said, he felt in duty bound to add: 

“Mother has some peculiarities, I believe most old people have; but I trust to your good sense to humor them as much as possible.  She has had her own way a long time, and though you will virtually be mistress of the house, inasmuch as it belongs to me, it will be better for mother to take the lead, as heretofore.”

There was a curl on Ethelyn’s lip as she received her first lesson with regard to her behavior as daughter-in-law; but she made no reply, not even to ask what the peculiarities were which she was to humor.  She really did not care what they were, as she fully intended having an establishment of her own in the thriving prairie village, just half a mile from her husband’s home.  She should probably spend a few weeks with Mrs. Markham, senior, whom she fancied a tall, stately woman, wearing heavy black silk dresses and thread lace caps on great occasions, and having always on hand some fine lamb’s-wool knitting work when she sat in the parlor where Daisy’s picture hung.  Ethelyn could not tell why it was that she always saw Richard’s mother thus, unless it were what Mrs. Captain Markham once said with regard to her Western sister-in-law, sending to Boston for a black silk which cost three dollars per yard—­a great price for those days—­and for two yards of handsome thread lace, which she, the Mrs. Captain, had run all over the city to get, “John’s wife was so particular to have it just the pattern and width she described in her letter.”

This was Richard’s mother as Ethelyn saw her, while the house on the prairie, which she knew had been built within a few years, presented a very respectable appearance to her mind’s eye, being large, and fashioned something after the new house across the Common, which had a bay window at the side, and a kind of cupola on the roof.  It would be quite possible to spend a few weeks comfortably there, especially as she would have the Washington gayeties in prospect, but in the spring, when, after a winter of dissipation she returned to the prairies, she should go to her own home, either in Olney or Camden; the latter, perhaps, as Richard could as well live there as elsewhere.  This was Ethelyn’s plan, but she kept it to herself, and changing the conversation from Richard’s mother and her peculiarities, she talked instead of the places they were to visit—­Quebec and Montreal, the seaside and the mountains, and lastly that great Babel of fashion, Saratoga, for which place several of her dresses had been expressly made.