Ellen waited a while, but her aunt
did not come, and the excitement of the moment cooled down.
She was not quite so ready to enter upon the business as she
had felt at first; she had even some qualms about it.
"But I'll do it!" said Ellen to herself — "it will be hard,
but I'll do it!"
CHAPTER XIV.
Work _not_ deferred.
The next morning, after breakfast, Ellen found the chance she
rather dreaded than wished for. Mr. Van Brunt had gone out;
the old lady had not left her room, and Miss Fortune was
quietly seated by the fire, busied with some mysteries of
cooking. Like a true coward, Ellen could not make up her mind
to bolt at once into the thick of the matter, but thought to
come to it gradually — always a bad way.
"What is that, Aunt Fortune?" said she, after she had watched
her with a beating heart for about five minutes.
"What is what?"
"I mean, what is that you are straining through the colander
into that jar?"
"Hop-water."
"What is it for?"
"I'm scalding this meal with it to make turnpikes."
"Turnpikes!" said Ellen — "I thought turnpikes were high,
smooth roads, with toll-gates every now and then — that's what
Mamma told me they were."
"That's all the kind of turnpikes your Mamma knew anything
about, I reckon," said Miss Fortune, in a tone that conveyed
the notion that Mrs. Montgomery's education had been very
incomplete.
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