Great was the surprise, and numerous the remarks and surmises of the citizens, when it was whispered abroad that the strange woman lying so sick in the governor’s house was no other than the governor’s wife, about whom the people had speculated so much.  Nor was it long ere the news went to Camden, stirring up the people there, and bringing Mrs. Miller at once to Davenport, where she stayed at a hotel until such time as she could be admitted to Ethelyn’s presence.

Mrs. Markham, senior, was washing windows when Tim Jones brought her the letter bearing the Davenport postmark.  Melinda had purposely abstained from writing home until Richard came; and so the letter was in his handwriting, which his mother recognized at once.

“Why, it’s from Richard!” she exclaimed.  “I thought he wouldn’t stay long at Clifton.  I never did believe in swashin’ all the time.  A bath in the tin washbasin does me very well,” and the good woman wiped her window leisurely, and even put it back and fastened the side-slat in its place before she sat down to see what Richard had written.

Tim knew what he had written, for in his hat was another letter from Melinda, for his mother, which he had opened, his feet going off into a kind of double shuffle as he read that Ethelyn had returned.  She had been very cold and proud to him; but he had admired her greatly, and remembered her with none but kindly feelings.  He was a little anxious to know what Mrs. Markham would say, but as she was in no hurry to open her letter, and he was in a hurry to tell his mother the good news, he bade her good-morning, and mounting his horse, galloped away toward home.

“I hope he’s told who the critter was that was took sick in the house,” Mrs. Markham said, as she adjusted her glasses and broke the seal.

Mrs. Markham had never fainted in her life, but she came very near it that morning, feeling some as she would if the Daisy, dead, so long, had suddenly walked into the room and taken a seat beside her.

“I am glad for Dick,” she said.  “I never saw a man change as he has, pinin’ for her.  I mean to be good to her, if I can,” and Mrs. Markham’s sun-bonnet was bent low over Richard’s letter, on which there were traces of tears when the head was lifted up again.  “I must let John know, I never can stand it till dinner time,” she said, and a shrill blast from the tin horn, used to bring her sons to dinner, went echoing across the prairie to the lot where John was working.

It was not a single blast, but peal upon peal, a loud, prolonged sound, which startled John greatly, especially as he knew by the sun that it could not be twelve o’clock.

“Blows as if somebody was in a fit,” he said, as he took long and rapid strides toward the farmhouse.

His mother met him in the lane, letter in hand, and her face white with excitement as she said below her breath: 

“John, John, oh!  John, she’s come.  She’s there at Richard’s—­sick with the fever, and crazy; and Richard is so glad.  Read what he says.”