"Fiddle-dee-dee! it's very nice to think so; I guess you're lazy. How soft and good those pillows do look, to be sure. Come, Ellen, try getting up a little. _I_ believe you hurt yourself with sleeping. It'll do you good to be out of bed awhile; come, get up." She pulled Ellen's arm as she spoke. "Stop, Nancy, let me alone!" cried Ellen, struggling with all her force; "I mustn't--I can't! I mustn't get up; what do you mean? I'm not able to sit up at all; let me go!" She succeeded in freeing herself from Nancy's grasp. "Well, you're an obstinate piece," said the other; "have your own way. But mind, I'm left in charge of you; is it time for you to take your physic?" "I am not taking any," said Ellen. "What are you taking?" "Nothing but gruel and little things." "'Gruel and little things;' little things means something good, I s'pose. Well, is it time for you to take some gruel or one of the little things?" "No, I don't want any." "Oh, that's nothing; people never know what's good for them; I'm your nurse now, and I'm going to give it to you when I think you want it. Let me feel your pulse--yes, your pulse says gruel is wanting. I shall put some down to warm right away." "I shan't take it," said Ellen. "That's a likely story! You'd better not say so. I rather s'pose you will if I give it to you. Look here, Ellen, you'd better mind how you behave; you're going to do just what I tell you. I know how to manage you; if you make any fuss I shall just tickle you finely," said Nancy, as she prepared a bed of coals, and set the cup of gruel on it to get hot; "I'll do it in no time at all, my young lady, so you'd better mind." Poor Ellen involuntarily curled up her feet under the bedclothes so as to get them as far as possible out of harm's way She judged the best thing was to keep quiet if she could, so she said nothing. Nancy was in great glee; with something of the same spirit of mischief that a cat shows when she has a captured mouse at the end of her paws. While the gruel was heating she spun round the room in quest of amusement; and her sudden jerks and flings from one place and thing to another had so much of lawlessness that Ellen was in perpetual terror as to what she might take it into her head to do next. "Where does that door lead to?" "I believe that one leads to the garret," said Ellen. "You _believe_ so? why don't you say it does, at once?" "I haven't been up to see." "You haven't! you expect me to believe that, I s'pose? I am not quite such a gull as you take me for. What's up there?" "I don't know, of course." "Of course! I declare I don't know what you are up to exactly; but if you won't tell me I'll find out for myself pretty quick, that's one thing." She flung open the door and ran up; and Ellen heard her feet trampling overhead from one end of the house to the other; and sounds too of pushing and pulling things over the floor; it was plain Nancy was rummaging.