It was the close of a chill October day, and a bank of angry clouds hung
darkly in the western sky, while the autumn wind blew across the
prairie; but colder, blacker, chillier far than prairie winds, or
threatening clouds, or autumnal day was the shadow resting on Ethelyn's
heart, and making her almost cry out with loneliness and homesickness,
as they drew near the house where the blue paper curtains were hanging
before the windows and Eunice Plympton's face was pressed against the
pane. The daisies and violets and summer grass were withered and dead,
and the naked branches of the lilac bush brushed against the house with
a mournful, rasping sound, which reminded her of the tall sign-post in
Chicopee, which used to creak so in the winter wind, and keep her Aunt
Barbara awake. To the right of the house, and a little in the rear, were
several large, square corn-cribs, and behind these an inclosure in which
numerous cattle, and horses, and pigs were industriously feeding, while
the cobs, stripped, and soiled, and muddy, were scattered everywhere.
Ethelyn took it all in at a glance, exclaiming, in a smothered voice, as
the wagon turned into the lane which led to the side door, "Not here,
Richard; surely, not here!"
But Richard, if he heard her, did not heed her. He could not comprehend
her utter desolation and crushing disappointment. Her imaginings of his
home had never been anything like this reality, and for a moment she
felt as if in a kind of horrible nightmare, from which she struggled
to awake.
"Oh! if it were only a dream," she thought; but it was no dream, though
as Richard himself lifted her carefully from the wagon, and deposited
her upon the side stoop, there came a mist before her eyes, and for an
instant sense and feeling forsook her; but only for an instant, for the
hall door was thrown open, and Richard's mother came out to greet her
son and welcome her new daughter.
But alas for Ethelyn's visions of heavy silk and costly lace! How they
vanished before this woman in purple calico, with ruffles of the same
standing up about the throat, and the cotton lace coiffure upon her
head! She was very glad to see her boy and wound both her arms around
his neck, but she was afraid of Ethelyn. She, too, had had her ideal,
but it was not like this proud-looking beauty, dressed so stylishly,
and, as it seemed to her so extravagantly, with her long, full skirt of
handsome poplin trailing so far behind her, and her basque fitting her
graceful figure so admirably. Neither did the hat, rolled so jauntily on
the sides, and giving her a coquettish appearance, escape her notice,
nor the fact that the dotted veil was not removed from the white face,
even after Richard had put the little, plump hand in hers, and said: "This, mother, is Ethie, my wife. I hope you will love each other for my
sake."