"You did not hear those words, my dear, but only the tune, which the boys and I were singing to our morning hymn."
"Morning hymn?" repeated Ellen, looking inquiringly at her aunt, as she slowly proceeded in dressing herself.
"Is that a strange thing to you, Ellen?" asked Mrs. Herbert with a smile; "I hope you will be up to-morrow in time to join us in singing it: but now your breakfast is ready," and Mrs. Herbert led the way to the room in which they had taken tea the evening before, where Ellen found George and Charles. They greeted her very affectionately, begged permission to call her Ellen, because they should then feel more at home with her, than if they were obliged to say cousin or even sister Ellen, and before they had risen from breakfast had made many plans for her amusement. Charles would have carried her off at once to see his puppy, but Mrs. Herbert stopped them.
"I must have Ellen," she said, "a little while to myself this morning. This afternoon she shall go with you, if she like."
After the boys had gone out Mrs. Herbert went with Ellen to her room, and assisted her to put it in neat order. When this was done, Ellen in turn assisted her aunt in setting the breakfast things away and arranging the parlor.
As Ellen was rather of an indolent nature, and Mary had ever been ready to do for her what she did not like to do for herself, she had scarcely ever been actively employed for so long a time; yet she did not feel at all tired, but found herself more than once, when her aunt Herbert was silent, humming,
Busy and pleased around I'll fly,
And treasure win from earth and sky.
When Mrs. Herbert's domestic arrangements were completed, she said, "Now, my love, you have been of great service to me, and I must try to be of some service to you. I cannot expect you to study to-day, but we will unpack your books, and arrange some plan for your studies, which you will then be able to commence to-morrow."
When this had been done, it still wanted two hours to the dinner time, and Mrs. Herbert proposed that Ellen should sit by her and assist her with some needle-work. "And then," she added, "we shall be able to talk more quietly than we could do while moving about. There are many things that you can tell me, of which I am anxious to hear."
Ellen was much more willing to tell than she was to sew, but she was not yet sufficiently at ease with her aunt Herbert to object to any thing she proposed, and she accordingly found her thimble and scissors, and seating herself by her aunt's side, took the work she gave her without any expression of dissatisfaction.