Ethelyn was very wretched and hailed with delight the presence of Melinda Jones, who came in the afternoon, bringing a basket of delicious apples and a lemon tart she had made herself.  Melinda was very sorry for Ethelyn, and her face said as much as she stood by her side and laid her hand softly upon the throbbing temples, pitying her so much, for she guessed just how homesick she was there with Mrs. Markham, whose ways had never seemed so peculiar, even to her, as since Ethelyn’s arrival.  “And still,” she thought, “I do not see how she can be so very unhappy, in any circumstances, with a husband like Richard.”  But here Melinda made a mistake; for though Ethelyn respected her husband, and had learned to miss him when he was gone, and the day whose close was not to bring him back would have been very long, she did not love him as a husband should be loved; and so there was nothing to fall back upon when other props gave way.

Wholly unsuspicious, Melinda sat down beside her, offering to brush her hair, and while she brushed and combed, and braided, and admired the glossy brown locks, she talked on the subject she thought most acceptable to the young wife’s ear—­of Richard, and the great popularity he had achieved, not only in his own county, but in neighboring ones, where he stood head and shoulders above his fellows.  There was talk once of making him governor, she said, but some thought him too young.  Lately, however, she had heard that the subject was again agitated, adding that her father and Tim both thought it more than probable that the next election would take him to the gubernatorial mansion.

“Tim would work like a hero for Richard,” she said.  “He almost idolizes him, and when he was up for Judge Tim’s exertions alone procured for him a hundred extra votes.  Tim is a rough, half-savage fellow, but he has the kindest of hearts, and is very popular with a certain class of men who could not be reached by one more polished and cultivated.”

So much Melinda said, by way of excusing Tim’s vulgarities; and then, with the utmost tact, she led the conversation back to Richard and the governorship, hinting that Ethelyn could do much toward securing that office for her husband.  A little attention, which cost nothing, would go a great ways, she said; and it was sometimes worth one’s while to make an effort, even if they did not feel like it.  More than one rumor had reached Melinda’s ear touching the pride of Dick Markham’s wife—­a pride which the Olney people felt keenly, and it the more keenly knowing that they had helped to give her husband a name; they had made him Judge, and sent him to Congress, and would like to make him governor, knowing well that that no office, however high, would change him from the plain, unpretending man, who, even in the Senate Chamber, would shake drunken Ike Plympton’s hand, and slap Tim Jones on the back if need be.  They liked their Dick, who had been a boy among them, and they thought it only fair that his wife should unbend a little, and not freeze them so with her lofty ways.