This was early in the season; but after the day when Mrs.Markham, senior, came over from Olney to spend the day, and "blow Richard's wife up," as she expressed it, everything was changed, and Ethelyn stayed out as late as she liked without any concessions to Richard.

Mrs.Markham, senior, had heard strange stories of Ethelyn's proceedings--"going to parties night after night, with her dress shamefully low, and going to plays and concerts bareheaded, with flowers and streamers in her hair, besides wearing a mask, and pretending she was Queen Hortense." "A pretty critter to be," Mrs.Markham had said to the kind neighbor who had returned from Camden and was giving her the particulars in full of Ethelyn's misdoings.

"Yes, a pretty critter to be! If I was goin' to turn myself into somebody else I'd take a decent woman.

I wonder at Richard's lettin' her; but, law! he is so blind and she so headstrong!" And the good woman groaned over this proof of depravity as she questioned her visitor further with regard to Ethie's departures from duty.
"And he don't go with her much, you say," she continued, feeling more aggrieved than ever when she heard that on the occasion of Ethie's personating Hortense, Richard had also appeared as a knight of the sixteenth century, and borne his part so well that Ethelyn herself did not recognize him until the mask was removed.
Mrs.Markham could not suffer such high-handed wickedness to go unrebuked, and taking as a peace offering, in case matters assumed a serious aspect, a pot of gooseberry jam and a ball of head cheese, she started for Camden the very next day.
Ethelyn did not expect her, but she received her kindly, and knowing how she hated a public table, had dinner served in her own room, and then, without showing the least impatience, waited a full hour for Richard to come in from the court-house, where an important suit was pending.

Mrs.
Markham was to return to Olney that night, and as there was no time to lose, she brought the conversation round to the "stories" she had heard, and little by little laid on the lash till Ethelyn's temper was roused, and she asked her mother-in-law to say out what she had to say at once, and not skirt round it so long.