“No; oh, no,” and Ethelyn’s voice expressed the disgust she felt for the young lady with red streamers in her hair, who had stared so at her and called her husband Richard.

Ethelyn had not yet defined Eunice’s position in the family—­whether it was that of cousin, or niece, or companion—­and now that Richard had suggested her, she said to him: 

“Who is this Eunice that seems so familiar?”

Richard hesitated a little and then replied: 

“She is the girl who works for mother when we need help.”

“Not a hired girl—­surely not a hired girl!” and Ethelyn opened her brown eyes wide with surprise and indignation, wondering aloud what Aunt Sophia or Aunt Barbara would say if they knew she had eaten with and been introduced to a hired girl.

Richard did not say, “Aunt Sophia or Aunt Barbara be hanged, or be—­anything,” but he thought it, just as he thought Ethelyn’s ideas particular and over-nice.  Eunice Plympton was a respectable, trusty girl, and he believed in doing well for those who did well for him; but that was no time to argue the point, and so he sat still and listened to Ethelyn’s complaint that Eunice had called him Richard, and would undoubtedly on the morrow address her as Ethelyn.  Richard thought not, but changed his mind when, fifteen minutes later, he descended to the kitchen and heard Eunice asking Andy if he did not think “Ethelyn looked like the Methodist minister’s new wife.”

This was an offense which even Richard could not suffer to pass unrebuked, and sending Andy out on some pretext or other, he said that to Eunice Plympton which made her more careful as to what she called his wife, but he did it so kindly that she could not be offended with him, though she was strengthened in her opinion that “Miss Ethelyn was a stuck-up, an upstart, and a hateful.  Supposin’ she had been waited on all her life, and brought up delicately, as Richard said, that was no reason why she need feel so big, and above speaking to a poor girl when she was introduced.”  She guessed that “Eunice Plympton was fully as respectable and quite as much thought on by the neighbors, if she didn’t wear a frock coat and a man’s hat with a green feather stuck in it.”

This was the substance of Eunice’s soliloquy, as she cleaned the potatoes for the morrow’s breakfast, and laid the kindlings by the stove, ready for the morning fire.  Still Eunice was not a bad-hearted girl, and when Andy, who heard her mutterings, put in a plea for Ethelyn, who he said “had never been so far away from home before, and whose head was aching enough to split,” she began to relent, and proposed, of her own accord, to take up to the great lady a foot-bath together with hot water for her head.