“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming to-night, and I’d the feeling that if poor aunt didn’t soon have a woman to tend her, she’d not stand much chance of pulling through. How do you think she is now?” he asked anxiously.
“She seems very ill, but she lay quieter after I had made her bed and put her comfortable. Perhaps she will seem better in the morning. How long has she been sick?” Nell asked.
“It’s a matter of a fortnight now since she was first took poorly, but she has only kept her bed a week, and the doctor he’s been twice. It is a desperate way, twelve miles for him to drive out and the same back. Did you walk all the way?”
“Yes,” murmured Nell, faintly, as, with a flash, it dawned upon her that the reason of her welcome was because she had been mistaken for some one else, some one who had not come, and probably would not on this night at least, for it was beginning to get quite dark.
But she could not tell this chubby-faced farmer about herself, not to-night at least, and since the need of a woman to help was so urgent, she was surely doing no harm in availing herself of the shelter of his house, if she did her duty by the sick woman.
“Well, if you’ve walked all that twelve miles, you certainly ain’t fit to be sitting up with poor aunt to-night,” he remarked, with a disappointed air.
“Oh yes I am, and to-morrow night too, if there is a need for it. But perhaps your aunt will be better in the morning. What did the doctor say she was to have to eat?” Nell asked.
She was still moving about the kitchen, putting things in order, yet going more slowly now because the work was almost done. The countryman, however, had dropped on to a bench near the stove, and looked quite worn out.
“Oh, gruel and milk, and messes like that. Poor aunt, she always did hate spoon victuals; so, when I came in to my dinner to-day and found she couldn’t eat the gruel I’d left for her at breakfast, I just fried her an egg and a bit of bacon, and tried to get her to eat that.”
“But that wasn’t right. Why, it might have killed her!” exclaimed Nell, in a horrified tone.