A familiar, relentless voice penetrated Joan's consciousness at last, and she screwed her swollen eyelids down tighter and even managed a reproving snore, wondering whether the halcyon days would ever come when she might be allowed to sleep her sleep out in the morning. Probably not, so long as Ellen Neal was within calling distance. The woman had a horror of what she called shiftless ways. Once in a moment of special exasperation she had been heard to mutter, "That's the chief thing that's the matter with your pa—he's never ready to get up in the morning!"—a remark which had remained in Joan's memory.
Now the sheets were suddenly jerked off her, and the relentless voice continued, "No use pretendin' you're asleep when you ain't. Here's your breakfast they've sent up to you, child, just as if you was sick a-bed. Humph!"
Suddenly reality came back upon her with full force—horrible reality; and she jumped up in bed and flung her arms around the old servant's neck, clinging tight, as she had done many a time before when something frightened her.
"Oh, Nellen, Nellen!" she moaned. "It's you! I thought you had deserted me, too!"
The woman stood immobile in this embrace, making no effort to return it. But her eyes blinked a little.
"Sho! What would I want to do that for? Don't be silly—Look out! There now, if you haven't gone and upset the coffee all over them fancy sheets! Coffee's hard to get out, too. That's what comes of havin' your vittles in bedrooms, where they don't belong."
The tears, which had threatened to take possession of Joan again, turned into a burst of wild laughter, "No matter! Plenty more where they come from, Nellen. What is a lace-trimmed sheet to my new mamma? I expect the very dishcloths are hand-embroidered. Behold the abode of cash, Ellen, cash! Isn't it grand? Oh," she cried, her voice breaking, "why didn't you come to me last night! Didn't you know how I'd need you?"
"I didn't know you was here, child, till I come this morning to see when him and her was expectin' you."
The girl's face fell. "Why, Ellen! Aren't you living here?"
"Me? In this house? I wouldn't so demean myself," said the other primly.