"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. And very often, when she was not wanted upstairs, her old grandmother would beg her to come and read to _her_ — perhaps at the very moment when Ellen was busiest. Ellen did her best. Miss Fortune never could be put off; her old mother sometimes could, with a kiss and a promise — but not always; and then, rather than she should fret, Ellen would leave everything, and give half an hour to soothing and satisfying her. She loved to do this at other times; now it was sometimes burdensome. Nancy could not help her at all in these matters, for neither Miss Fortune nor the old lady would let her come near them. Besides all this, there was a measure of care constantly upon Ellen's mind; she felt charged with the welfare of all about the house; and under the effort to meet the charge, joined to the unceasing bodily exertion, she grew thin and pale. She was tired with Nancy's talk; she longed to be reading and studying again; she longed — oh! how she longed! — for Alice's and John's company again; and it was no wonder if she sometimes cast very sad, longing looks further back still. Now and then an old fit of weeping would come. But Ellen remembered John's words; and often in the midst of her work, stopping short with a sort of pang of sorrow and weariness, and the difficulty of doing right, she would press her hands together and say to herself, "I will try to be a good pilgrim!" Her morning hour of prayer was very precious now; and her Bible grew more and more dear. Little Ellen found its words a mighty refreshment; and often when reading it she loved to recall what Alice had said at this and the other place, and John, and Mr. Marshman, and before them her mother. The passages about heaven, which she well remembered reading to her one particular morning, became great favourites; they were joined with her mother in Ellen's thoughts; and she used to go over and over them till she nearly knew them by heart. "What _do_ you keep reading that for, the whole time?" said Nancy, one day. "Because I like to," said Ellen.