"Who did you think was going to do it? There's nothing in this house but goes through my hand, I can tell you, and so must you. I suppose you've lived all your life among people that thought a great deal of wetting their little finger! but I'm not one of 'em, I guess you'll find."
Ellen was convinced of that already.
"Well, what are you thinking of?" said Miss Fortune, presently.
"I'm thinking of my nice white darning cotton," said Ellen. "I might just as well not have had it."
"Is it wound, or in the skein?"
"In the skein."
"Then just go right up and get it. I'll warrant I'll fix it so that you'll have a use for it."
Ellen obeyed, but musing rather uncomfortably what else there was of hers that Miss Fortune could lay hands on. She seemed in imagination to see all her white things turning brown. She resolved she would keep her trunk well locked up; but what if her keys should be called for?
She was dismissed to her room soon after the dyeing business was completed. It was rather a disagreeable surprise to find her bed still unmade; and she did not at all like the notion that the making of it in future must depend entirely upon herself Ellen had no fancy for such handiwork. She went to sleep in somewhat the same dissatisfied mood with which the day had been begun displeasure at her coarse heavy coverlid and cotton sheets again taking its place among weightier matters! and dreamed of tying them together into a rope by which to let herself down out of the window; but when she had got so far, Ellen's sleep became sound, and the end of the dream was never known.