Thus flattered and complimented, Ethelyn shook out her skirts, which “draggled half a yard behind,” and went downstairs to where Mrs. Jones sat working on Timothy’s shirt, and Melinda was crocheting, while Mrs. Markham, senior, clean and neat, and stiff in her starched, purple calico, sat putting a patch on a fearfully large hole in the knee of Andy’s pants.  As Ethelyn swept into the room there fell a hush upon the inmates, and Mrs. Jones was almost guilty of an exclamation of surprise.  She had expected something fine, she said—­something different from the Olney quality—­but she was not prepared for anything as grand and queenly as Ethelyn, when she sailed into the room, with her embroidered handkerchief held so gracefully in her hands, and in response to Mrs. Markham’s introduction, bowed so very low, and slowly, too, her lips scarcely moving at all, and her eyes bent on the ground.  Mrs. Jones actually ran the needle she was sewing with under her thumb in her sudden start, while Melinda’s crocheting dropped into her lap.  She, too, was surprised, though not as much as her mother.  She, like Eunice, had seen Mrs. Judge Miller, from New York, whose bridal trousseau was imported from Paris, and whose wardrobe was the wonder of Camden.  And Ethelyn was very much like her, only younger and prettier.

“Very pretty,” Melinda thought, while Mrs. Jones fell to comparing her, mentally, with the deceased Abigail; wondering how Richard, if he had ever loved the one, could have fancied the other, they were so unlike.

Of course, the mother’s heart gave to Abigail the preference for all that was good and womanly, and worthy of Richard Markham; but Ethelyn bore off the palm for style, and beauty, too.

“Handsome as a doll, but awfully proud,” Mrs. Jones decided, during the interval in which she squeezed her wounded thumb, and got the needle again in motion upon Timothy’s shirt-sleeve.

Ethelyn was not greatly disappointed in Mrs. Jones and her daughter; the mother especially was much like what she had imagined her to be, while Melinda was rather prettier—­rather more like the Chicopee girls than she expected.  There was a look on her face like Susie Granger, and the kindly expression of her black eyes made Ethelyn excuse her for wearing a magenta bow, while her cheeks were something the same hue.  They were very stiff at first, Mrs. Jones saying nothing at all, and Melinda only venturing upon common-place inquiries—­as to how Ethelyn bore her journey, if she was ever in that part of the country before, and how she thought she should like the West.  This last question Ethelyn could not answer directly.

“It was very different from New England,” she said, “but she was prepared for that, and hoped she should not get very homesick during the few weeks which would elapse before she went to Washington.”