“She was a nice, good girl,” he said, “but couldn’t hold a candle to Ethie.  She was too dark complected, and had altogether too thumpin’ feet and ankles, besides wearin’ wrinkly stockings.”

That was Andy’s criticism, confided to his brother John, around whose grave mouth there was a faint glimmer of a smile, as he gave a hitch to his suspender and replied, “I guess her stockin’s do wrinkle some.”

A few of Melinda’s ways Mrs. Markham designated as high-flown, but one by one her prejudices gave way as Melinda gained upon her step by step, until at last Ethelyn would hardly have recognized the well-ordered household, so different from what she had known it.

“The boys” no longer came to the table in their shirt-sleeves, for Melinda always had their coats in sight, just where it was handy to put them on, and the trousers were slipped down over the boots while the boys ate, and the soft brown Markham hair always looked smooth and shining, and Mrs. Markham tidied herself a little before coming to the table, no matter how heavy her work, and never but once was she guilty of sitting down to her dinner in her pasteboard sun-bonnet, giving as an excuse that her “hair was at sixes and sevens.”  She remembered seeing her mother do this fifty years before, and she had clung to the habit as one which must be right because they used to do so in Vermont.  Gradually, too, there came to be napkins for tea, and James’ Christmas present to his wife was a set of silver forks, while John contributed a dozen individual salts, and Andy bought a silver bell, to call he did not know whom, only it looked pretty on the table, and he wanted it there every meal, ringing it himself sometimes when anything was needed, and himself answering the call.  On the whole, the Markhams were getting to be “dreadfully stuck up,” Eunice Plympton’s mother said, while Eunice doubted if she should like living there now as well as in the days of Ethelyn.  She had been a born lady, and Eunice conceded everything to her; but, “to see the airs that Melinda Jones put on” was a little too much for Eunice’s democratic blood, and she and her mother made many invidious remarks concerning “Mrs. Jim Markham,” who wore such heavy silk to church, and sported such handsome furs.  One hundred and fifty dollars the cape alone had cost, it was rumored, and when, to this Richard added a dark, rich muff to match, others than Eunice looked enviously at Mrs. James, who to all intents and purposes, was the same frank, outspoken person that she was when she wore a plain scarf around her neck, and rode to church in her father’s lumber wagon instead of the handsome turn-out James had bought since his marriage.  Nothing could spoil Melinda, and though she became quite the fashion in Olney, and was frequently invited to Camden to meet the elite of the town, she was up just as early on Monday mornings as when she lived at home, and her young, strong arms saved Mrs. Markham more work than