Miss Fortune was crouching by the pan, turning her slices of pork. "How do you do this morning?" she answered, without looking up.
Ellen replied she felt a great deal better.
"Slept warm, did you?" said Miss Fortune, as she set the pan back on the fire. And Ellen could hardly answer. "Quite warm, Maam," when the hissing and sputtering began again, as loud as ever.
"I must wait," thought Ellen, "till this is over, before I say what I want to. I can't scream out to ask for a basin and towel."
In a few minutes the pan was removed from the fire, and Miss Fortune went on to take out the brown slices of nicely-fried pork and arrange them in a deep dish, leaving a small quantity of clear fat in the pan. Ellen, who was greatly interested, and observing every step most attentively, settled in her own mind that certainly this would be thrown away, being fit for nothing but the pigs. But Miss Fortune didn't think so, for she darted into some pantry close by, and returning with a cup of cream in her hand, emptied it all into the pork fat. Then she ran into the pantry again for a little round tin box, with a cover full of holes, and shaking this gently over the pan, a fine white shower of flour fell upon the cream. The pan was then replaced on the fire and stirred; and, to Ellen's astonishment, the whole changed, as if by magic, to a thick, stiff, white froth. It was not till Miss Fortune was carefully pouring this over the fried slices in the dish, that Ellen suddenly recollected that breakfast was ready, and she was not.
"Aunt Fortune," she said, timidly, "I haven't washed yet there's no basin in my room."
Miss Fortune made no answer, nor gave any sign of hearing; she went on dishing up breakfast. Ellen waited a few minutes.
"Will you please, Maam, to show me where I can wash myself."
"Yes," said Miss Fortune, suddenly standing erect, "you'll have to go down to the spout."
"The spout, Maam," said Ellen, "what's that?"