But at first she went rather sadly. In spite of all her good resolves and wishes, everything that day had gone wrong; and Ellen felt that the root of the evil was in her own heart. Some tears fell as she walked. Farther from her aunt's house, however, her spirits began to rise; her foot fell lighter on the green sward. Hope and expectation quickened her steps; and when at length she passed the little wood-path it was almost on a run. Not very far beyond that her glad eyes saw the house she was in quest of. It was a large white house; not very white either, for its last dress of paint had grown old long ago. It stood close by the road, and the trees of the wood seemed to throng it round on every side. Ellen mounted the few steps that led to the front door, and knocked; but as she could only just reach the high knocker, she was not likely to alarm anybody with the noise she made. After a great many little faint raps, which, if anybody heard them, might easily have been mistaken for the attacks of some rat's teeth upon the wainscot, Ellen grew weary of her fruitless toil of standing on tiptoe, and resolved, though doubtfully, to go round the house and see if there was any other way of getting in. Turning the far corner, she saw a long, low outbuilding or shed jutting out from the side of the house. On the farther side of this Ellen found an elderly woman standing in front of the shed, which was there open and paved, and wringing some clothes out of a tub of water. She was a pleasant woman to look at, very trim and tidy, and a good-humoured eye and smile when she saw Ellen. Ellen made up to her and asked for Miss Humphreys. "Why, where in the world did you come from?" said the woman; "I don't receive company at the back of the house." "I knocked at the front door till I was tired," said Ellen, smiling in return. "Miss Alice must ha' been asleep. Now, honey, you have come so far round to find me, will you go a little farther and find Miss Alice? Just go round this corner and keep straight along till you come to the glass door--there you'll find her. Stop!--maybe she's asleep; I may as well go along with you myself." She wrung the water from her hands and led the way.