Where was she now, and why had she not come at once to the dear old home, where she would have been so welcome until such time as matters could be adjusted on a more amicable basis?
For Aunt Barbara, though in taking Ethie's side altogether, had no thought that the separation should be final.

She had chosen a life of celibacy because she preferred it, and found it a very smooth and pleasant one, especially after Ethie came and brought the sunshine of joyous childhood to her quiet home; but "those whom God had joined together" were bound to continue so, she firmly believed; and had Ethie come to her with her tale of sorrow, she would have listened kindly to it, poured in the balm of sympathy and love, and then, if possible, restored her to her husband.

Of all this she thought during the few minutes Mrs.Dr.Van Buren talked, and she sat passive in her chair, where she had dropped, with her dumpy little hands lying so helplessly in her lap, and her cap all awry, as Tabby had made it when purring and rubbing against it.
"Then, you have not seen her, or heard a word ?" Mrs.Van Buren asked; and in a kind of uncertain way, as if she wondered what they were talking about, Aunt Barbara replied: "No, I have not seen her, and I don't know, I am sure, what made the child go off without letting us know." "She was driven to it by the pack of heathens around her," Mrs.Dr.Van Buren retorted, feeling a good deal guilty herself for having been instrumental in bringing about this unhappy match, and in proportion as she felt guilty, seizing with avidity any other offered cause for Ethie's wretchedness.

"I've heard even more about them than you told me," she went on to say.

"There was Mrs.Ellis, whose cousin lives in Olney--she says the mother is the most peculiar and old-fashioned woman imaginable; actually wears blue yarn stockings, footed with black, makes her own candles, and sleeps in the kitchen." With regard to the candles Aunt Barbara did not know; the sleeping in the kitchen she denied, and the footed stockings she admitted; saying, however, those she saw were black, rather than blue.