"Pretty, very pretty, but decidedly a nonentity and a baby," was
Ethelyn's mental comment, and she felt something like contempt for
Frank, who, after loving and leaning on her, could so easily turn to
weak little Nettie Hudson.

At the sight of Frank and the sound of his voice, she had felt all the
olden feeling rushing back to her heart; but when, after Nettie had
followed Mrs. Van Buren to her chamber, and she stood for a moment alone
with him, he felt constrained to say something, and stammered out, "It's
deuced mean, Ethie, to serve you so, and mother ought to be indicted. I
hope you don't care much," all her pride and womanliness was roused and
she answered promptly: "Of course, I don't care; do you think I would
wish to marry Judge Markham if I were not all over that childish affair?
You have not seen him yet. He is a splendid man."

Ethelyn felt better after paying this tribute to Richard Markham, and
she liked him better, too, now that she had spoken for him, but Frank's
reply, "Yes, mother told me so, but said there was a good deal of your
Westernism about him yet," jarred on her feelings as she plucked the
roses growing at the end of the piazza and crushed them, thorns and all,
in her hands, feeling the smart less than the dull, heavy throbbing at
her heart. Frank did not seem to her just as he used to be; he was the
same polished dandy as of old, and just as careful to perform every
little act of gallantry, but the something lacking which she had always
felt to a certain extent was more perceptible now, and to herself she
accused him of having degenerated since he had passed from her
influence. She never dreamed of charging it to her interviews with Judge
Markham, whose topics of conversation were so widely different from
Frank's. She was not generous enough to concede anything in his favor,