“I leave the tunes to your sister, who, I believe, plays sometimes.”

Somewhat crestfallen, but by no means browbeaten, Tim insisted that Melinda should give them a jig; and, so, crimsoning with shame and confusion, Melinda took the vacant stool and played her brother a tune—­a rollicking, galloping tune, which everybody knew, and which set the feet to keeping time, and finally brought Tim and Andy to the floor for a dance.  But Melinda declined playing for a cotillion which her brother proposed, and so the dancing arrangement came to naught, greatly to the delight of Ethelyn, who could only keep back her tears by looking up at the sweet face of Daisy smiling down upon her from the wall.  That was the only redeeming point in that whole assembly, she thought.  She would not even except Richard then, so intense was her disappointment and so bitter her regret for the mistake she made when she promised to go where her heart could never be.

It was nine o’clock when the company dispersed.  Each of the ladies cordially invited Ethelyn to call as soon as convenient, and Mrs. Harrington, a lady of some cultivation, whose husband was the village merchant, saying encouragingly to her, as she held her hand a moment, “Our Western manners seem strange to you, I dare say; but we are a well-meaning people, and you will get accustomed to us by and by.”

She never should—­no, never, thought Ethelyn, as she went up to her room, tired and homesick, and disheartened with this, her first introduction to the Olney people.  It was a very cross wife that slept at Richard’s side that night, and the opinion expressed of the Olneyites was anything but complimentary to the taste of one who had known them all his life and liked them so well.  But Richard was getting accustomed to such things.  Lectures did not move him now as they had at first, and overcome with fatigue from his day’s work and the evening’s excitement, he fell asleep, while Ethelyn was enlarging upon the merits of the terrible Tim, who had addressed her as “old lady” and asked her to “play a tune.”

CHAPTER XII

SOCIETY

In the course of two weeks all the people in Olney called upon Ethelyn, who would gladly have refused herself to them all.  But after the morning when Andy stood outside the door of her room, wringing his hands in great distress at the tone of Richard’s voice, and Ethelyn stayed in bed all day with the headache, and was nursed by Eunice and Melinda, Ethelyn did better, and was at least polite to those who called.  She had said she would not see them, and Richard had said she should; and as he usually made people do as he liked, Ethelyn was forced to submit, but cried herself sick.  It was very desolate and lonely upstairs that day, for Richard was busy in town, and the wind swept against the windows with a mournful, moaning sound, which made Ethelyn think of dear old Chicopee, and the lofty elms through whose swaying branches the same October wind was probably sighing on this autumnal day.  But, oh! how vast the difference, she thought; for what would have been music if heard at home among the New England hills, was agony here upon the Western prairie.