Ellen
longed to get near enough to touch their little innocent
heads, but it was impossible; and recollecting the business on
her hands, she too danced away.
"Whew!" said Nancy, when Ellen told her of the new inmates of
the barn-yard; — "there'll be work to do! Get your milk-pans
ready, Ellen; in a couple of weeks we'll be making butter."
"Aunt Fortune will be well by that time, I hope," said Ellen.
"She won't, then, so you may just make up your mind to it. Dr.
Gibson was to see her yesterday forenoon, and he stopped at
Miss Lowndes' on his way back; and he said it was a chance if
she got up again in a month and more. So, that's what it is,
you see."
"A month, and more." It was all that. Miss Fortune was not
dangerously ill; but part of the time in a low nervous fever,
part of the time encumbered with other ailments, she lay from
week to week, bearing her confinement very ill, and making it
as disagreeable and burdensome as possible for Ellen to attend
upon her. Those were weeks of trial. Ellen's patience and
principle and temper were all put to the proof. She had no
love, in the first place, for household work, and now her
whole time was filled up with it. Studies could not be thought
of. Reading was only to be had by mere snatches. Walks and
rides were at an end. Often, when already very tired, she had
to run up and down stairs for her aunt, or stand and bathe her
face and hands with vinegar, or read the paper to her, when
Miss Fortune declared she was so nervous she should fly out of
her skin if she didn't hear something besides the wind.
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