The place don't make the difference; it's the way the folks act." This she said in defense of the West generally.

There were quite as nice people there as anywhere, and she believed Mrs.Markham meant to be kind to Ethie; surely Richard did, only he did not understand her.

It was very wrong to lock her up, and then it was wrong in Ethie to marry him, feeling as she did.

"It was all wrong every way, but the heaviest punishment for the wrong had fallen on poor Ethie, gone, nobody knew where." It was not in nature for Aunt Barbara to say so much without crying, and her tears were dropping fast into her motherly lap, where Tabby was now lying.

Mrs.Van Buren was greatly irritated that her sister did not render her more assistance, and as a failure in that quarter called for greater exertions on her own part, she returned again to the charge, and wound up with sweeping denunciations against the whole Markham family.
"The idea of taking a young girl there, and trying to bend her to your ways of thinking--to debar her from all the refinements to which she had been accustomed, and give her for associates an ignorant mother-in-law and a half-witted brother." Richard had borne a great deal from Mrs.Van Buren, and borne it patiently, too, as something which he deserved.