You can fashion it as you think she would like it, and meantime we will live with you and see to you a little.

You need some looking after," and Melinda laid her hand half pityingly upon the bowed head of her brother-in-law, who, but for her strong, upholding influence, and Andy's cheering faith, would have sunk ere this into hopeless despondency.
Melinda was a fine specimen of true womanhood.

She had met many highly cultivated people at Des Moines and other towns, where, as the governor's sister-in-law, she had spent more or less of the last two years, and as nothing ever escaped her notice, she had improved wonderfully, until even Mrs.Van Buren, of Boston, would have been proud of her acquaintance.

She had known sorrow, too; for in the cemetery at Des Moines she had left her little blue-eyed baby boy when only six months old, and her mother's heart had ached to its very core, until there came another child, a little girl, this time, whom they had christened "Ethelyn Grant," and who, on this account, was quite as dear to Richard as to either of its parents.

Richard was happier with that little brown-haired girl than with anyone else, and when Melinda suggested they should go together somewhere, he assented readily, mentioning Davenport as a place where Ethelyn had many times said she would like to live.