"Yes."
"Then good-night."
"Good-night," answered Ellen.
Ten o'clock struck and eleven and Ellen sat still. Then she went in and advanced slowly toward the stairway. With her foot on the lowest step, she heard Millie laugh. Grossly offended, she turned and went into her father's office and closed the door. Millie had asked for no changes, and here was the old sofa with its worn cushions, a desk, a chair, and a little table, upon it a few books, a pad of paper, two lead-pencils, and some withered flowers in a glass. Ellen lay down upon the sofa as though it were her bier.
It was part of Millie's religion to have kindly feelings toward all mankind. Finding breakfast on the table in the morning, she praised Ellen and thanked her and assured her that she would be lazy no more.
"We can plan everything so that neither will have more to do than the other."
It was now Ellen who was nervous.
"Thank you," said she in a tone which seemed to Millie to express a becoming gratitude.
Millie was sincerely commiserative; she pitied every one in the world who was not Millie Levis—except Matthew to whom she belonged.
"I never had a chance to tell you how sorry I am for you, Ellen," said she, looking pleasantly into Ellen's heavy eyes. "But we must remember that God doeth all things well."