Black or blue, it was all the same to Mrs.Dr.Van Buren, whose feet seldom came in contact with anything heavier than silk or the softest of lamb's wool; and, had there been wanting other evidence of Mrs.Markham's vulgarity, the stocking question would have settled the matter with her.
"Poor Ethie!" she sighed, as she drew her seat to the fire, and asked what they ought to do.
Aunt Barbara did not know.

She was too much bewildered to think of anything just then, and after ordering the four o'clock dinner, which, she knew, would suit her sister's habits better than an earlier one, she, too, sat quietly down by the fire with her knitting lying idly in her lap, and her eyes looking dreamily through the frosty panes off upon the snowy hills where Ethelyn used to play.

Occasionally, in reply to some question of her sister's, she would tell what she herself saw in that prairie home, and then look up amazed at the exasperating effect it seemed to have upon Mrs.Dr.Van Buren.

That lady was terrible incensed against the whole Markham race, for through them she had been touched on a tender point.

Ethie's desertion of her husband would not be wholly excused by the world; there was odium attaching to such a step, however great the provocation, and the disgrace was what Mrs.Van Buren would feel most keenly.