She
didn't or'to marry you feelin' as she did. That was where the
wrong began."
This was the most and the worst Andy ever said against Ethelyn, and he
repented of that the moment the words were out of his mouth. It was mean
to speak ill of the absent, especially when the absent one was Ethie,
who had written, "In fancy I put my arms around your neck and kiss your
dear, kind face." Andy deemed himself a monster of ingratitude when he
recalled these lines and remembered that of her who penned them he had
said, "She was some to blame." He took it all back to himself, and tried
to exonerate Ethie entirely, though it was hard work to do so where he
saw how broken, and stunned, and crushed his brother was, and how little
he realized what was passing around him.
"He don't know much more than I do," was Andy's mental comment, when to
his question, "What shall we do next?" Richard replied, in a maudlin
kind of way, "Yes, that is a very proper course. I leave it entirely
to you."
Andy felt that a great deal was depending upon himself, and he tried to
meet the emergency. Seeing how Richard continued to shiver, and how cold
he was, he persuaded him to lie down upon the bed, and piling the
blankets upon him, made such a fire as he said to himself, "would roast
a common ox"; then, when Hal Clifford came to the door and knocked, he
kept him out, with that "Dick had been broke of his rest, and was tryin'
to make it up.
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