From time to time she was so far awakened to feeling, by Patty’s exertions and good-humour, that she would say, to quiet her own conscience, “Well! well! I’ll make it all up to her in my will! I’ll make it all up to her in my will!” She took it for granted that Patty, like the rest of her dependents, was governed entirely by mercenary considerations; and she was persuaded that the hopes of this legacy would secure Patty her slave for life. In this she was mistaken. One morning Patty came into her room with a face full of sorrow; a face so unlike her usual countenance, that even her mistress, unaccustomed as she was to attend to the feelings of others, could not help noticing the change. “Well! What’s the matter, child?” said she. “Oh! sad news, madam!” said Patty, turning aside to hide her tears. “But what’s the matter, child, I say? Can’t you speak, whatever it is, hey? What, have you burnt my best cap in the ironing, hey? Is that it?” “Oh! worse, worse, ma’am!” “Worse! What can be worse?” “My brother, ma’am, my brother George, is ill, very ill of a fever; and they don’t think he’ll live! Here is my father’s letter, ma’am!” “Lord! how can I read it without spectacles? and why should I read it, when you’ve told me all that’s in it? How the child cries!” continued Mrs. Crumpe, raising herself a little on her pillow, and looking at Patty with a sort of astonished curiosity. “Heigho! But I can’t stay in bed this way till dinnertime. Get me my cap, child, and dry your eyes; for crying won’t do your brother any good.” Patty dried her eyes. “No, crying will not do him any good,” said she, “but------” “But where is my cap? I don’t see it on the dressing-table.” “No, ma’am: Martha will bring it in a minute or two: she is plaiting it.” “I will not have it plaited by Martha. Go and do it yourself.” “But, ma’am,” said Patty, who, to her mistress’s surprise, stood still, notwithstanding she heard this order, “I hope you will be so good as to give me leave to go to my poor brother to-day. All the rest of my brothers and sisters are with him, and he wants to see me; and they have sent a horse for me.” “No matter what they have sent, you sha’n’t go; I can’t spare you. If you choose to serve me, serve me. If you choose to serve your brother, serve your brother, and leave me.” “Then, madam,” said Patty, “I must leave you; for I cannot but choose to serve my brother at such a time as this, if I can serve him; which God grant I mayn’t be too late to do!” “What! You will leave me! Leave me contrary to my orders! Take notice, then: these doors you shall never enter again, if you leave me now,” cried Mrs. Crumpe, who, by this unexpected opposition to her orders, was actually worked up to a state unlike her usual peevishness. She started up in her bed, and growing quite red in the face, cried, “Leave me now, and you leave me for ever. Remember that! Remember that!”