Mr. Humphreys had brought the little one-horse sleigh for his daughter, and, soon after breakfast, Ellen saw it drive off with her. Mr. Van Brunt then harnessed his own and carried Ellen home. Ill though she felt, the poor child made an effort, and spent part of the morning in finishing the long letter to her mother, which had been on the stocks since Monday. The effort became painful towards the last: and the aching limbs and trembling hand of which she complained, were the first beginnings of a serious fit of illness. She went to bed that same afternoon, and did not leave it again for two weeks. Cold had taken violent hold of her system; fever set in, and ran high; and half the time little Ellen's wits were roving in delirium. Nothing, however, could be too much for Miss Fortune's energies; she was as much at home in a sick room as in a well one. She flew about with increased agility; was upstairs and downstairs twenty times in the course of a day, and kept all straight everywhere. Ellen's room was always the picture of neatness; the fire, the wood fire was taken care of; Miss Fortune seemed to know, by instinct, when it wanted a fresh supply, and to be on the spot by magic to give it. Ellen's medicines were dealt out in proper time; her gruels and drinks perfectly well made and arranged, with appetizing nicety, on a little table by the bedside, where she could reach them herself; and Miss Fortune was generally at hand when she was wanted. But, in spite of all this, there was something missing in that sick room — there was a great want; and whenever the delirium was upon her, Ellen made no secret of it. She was never violent; but she moaned, sometimes impatiently, and sometimes plaintively, for her mother. It was a vexation to Miss Fortune to hear her. The name of her mother was all the time on her lips; if by chance her aunt's name came in, it was spoken in a way that generally sent her bouncing out of the room. "Mamma," poor Ellen would say, "just lay your hand on my forehead, will you? it's so hot! Oh, do, Mamma! — where are you? Do put your hand on my forehead, won't you? Oh, do speak to me! — why don't you, Mamma? Oh, why don't she come to me?" Once, when Ellen was uneasily calling in this fashion for her mother's hand, Miss Fortune softly laid her own upon the child's brow; but the quick sudden jerk of the head from under it told her how well Ellen knew the one from the other; and, little as she cared for Ellen, it was wormwood to her.