"You'd best be quiet or I'll come and see you," said Nancy; "I'm just going to look at everything in it, and if I find any thing out of sorts, you'll get it. What's this? ruffles, I declare! ain't you fine! I'll see how they look on me. What a plague! you haven't a glass in the room. Never mind--I am used to dressing without a glass." "Oh, I wish you wouldn't," said Ellen, who was worried to the last degree at seeing her nicely done-up ruffles round Nancy's neck; "they're so nice, and you'll muss them all up." "Don't cry about it," said Nancy coolly, "I ain't agoing to eat 'm. My goodness! what a fine hood! ain't that pretty?" The nice blue hood was turned about in Nancy's fingers, and well looked at inside and out. Ellen was in distress for fear it would go on Nancy's head, as well as the ruffles round her neck; but it didn't; she flung it at length on one side, and went on pulling out one thing after another, strewing them very carelessly about the floor. "What's here? a pair of dirty stockings, as I am alive. Ain't you ashamed to put dirty stockings in your trunk?" "They are no such thing," said Ellen, who in her vexation was in danger of forgetting her fear--"I've worn them but once." "They've no business in here anyhow," said Nancy, rolling them up in a hard ball and giving them a sudden fling at Ellen. They just missed her face and struck the wall beyond. Ellen seized them to throw back, but her weakness warned her she was not able, and a moment reminded her of the folly of doing anything to rouse Nancy, who for the present was pretty quiet. Ellen lay upon her pillow and looked on, ready to cry with vexation. All her nicely-stowed piles of white clothes were ruthlessly hurled out and tumbled about; her capes tried on; her summer dresses unfolded, displayed, criticised. Nancy decided one was too short; another very ugly; a third horribly ill-made; and when she had done with each it was cast out of her way on one side or the other as the case might be. The floor was littered with clothes in various states of disarrangement and confusion. The bottom of the trunk was reached at last, and then Nancy suddenly recollected her gruel, and sprang to it. But it had grown cold again. "This won't do," said Nancy, as she put it on the coals again, "it must be just right; it'll warm soon, and then, Miss Ellen, you're agoing to take it whether or no. I hope you won't give me the pleasure of pouring it down."