For a moment Ethelyn hesitated, but Eunice had been so kind, and proffered her request so timidly, that she could not well refuse, and gave a faint assent. But she was spared the trial of seeing her basquine strained over Eunice's buxom figure by the entrance of Richard, who came to say that Melinda Jones was in the parlor below. In spite of all Tim had said about madam's airs, and his advice that "Melinda should keep away," that young lady had ventured upon a call, thinking her intimacy with the family would excuse any unseemly haste, and thinking, too, it may be, that possibly Mrs. Richard Markham would be glad to know there was someone in Olney more like the people to whom she had been accustomed than Mrs. Markham, senior, and her handmaid, Eunice Plympton. Melinda's toilet had been made with direct reference to what Mrs. Ethelyn would think of it, and she was looking very well indeed in her gray dress and sack, with plain straw hat and green ribbons, which harmonized well with her high-colored cheeks. But Melinda's pains had been for naught, just as Richard feared, when she asked if "Mrs. Markham" was too tired to see her. Richard was glad to see Melinda, and Melinda was glad to see Richard--so glad that she gave him a hearty kiss, prefacing the act with the remark, "I can kiss you, now you are a married man." Richard liked the kiss, and liked Melinda's frank, open manner, which had in it nothing Van Burenish, as he secretly termed the studied elegance of Mrs. Richard Markham's style. Melinda was natural, and he promptly kissed her back, feeling that in doing so he was guilty of nothing wrong, for he would have done the same had Ethelyn been present. She had a terrible headache, he said, in answer to Melinda's inquiry, and perhaps she did not feel able to come down. He would see. The hot water and Eunice's bathing had done Ethelyn good, and, with the exception that she was very pale, she looked bright and handsome, as she lay upon the pillows, with her loose hair forming a dark, glossy frame about her face. "You are better, Ethie," Richard said, bending over her, and playfully lifting her heavy hair. "Eunice has done you good. She's not so bad, after all." "Eunice is well enough in her place," was Ethelyn's reply; and then there was a pause, while Richard wondered how he should introduce Melinda Jones.