The friends were all there
now--James, and John, and Andy, and Aunt Barbara, with Mrs. Markham,
senior, who, at first, felt a little worried, lest her son should be
eaten out of house and home, especially as Melinda manifested no
disposition to stint the table of any of their accustomed luxuries. As
housekeeper, Mrs. Dobson was a little inclined at first to stand in awe
of the governor's mother, and so offered no remonstrance when the tea
grounds from supper were carefully saved to be boiled up for breakfast,
as both Melinda and Aunt Barbara preferred tea to coffee, but when it
came to a mackerel and a half for seven people, and four of them men,
Mrs. Dobson demurred, and Melinda's opinion in requisition, the result
was that three fishes, instead of one and a half smoked upon the
breakfast table next morning, together with toast and mutton-chops.
After that Mrs. Markham gave up the contest with a groan, saying, "they
might go to destruction their own way, for all of her."
Where Ethelyn was concerned, however, she showed no stint. Nothing was
too good for her, no expense too great, and next to Richard and Andy,
she seemed more anxious, more interested than anyone for the sick girl
who lay so insensible of all that was passing around her, save at brief
intervals when she seemed for an instant to realize where she was, for
her eyes would flash about the room with a frightened, startled look,
and then seek Richard's face with a wistful, pleading expression, as if
asking not to cast her off, not to send her back into the dreary world
where she had wandered so long alone.
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