"No, mother, and I must take that young one back. Ain't she awake yet?"
"I'll see directly; but she ain't going home, nor you neither, 'Brahm, till you've got your supper it would be a sin to let her. She shall have a taste of my splitters this very night; I've been makin' them o' purpose for her. So you may just take off your hat and sit down."
"You mean to let her know where to come when she wants good things, mother. Well, I won't say splitters ain't worth waiting for."
Ellen heard him sit down, and then she guessed from the words that passed, that Mrs. Van Brunt and her little maid were busied in making the cakes; she lay quiet.
"You're a good friend, 'Brahm," began the old lady again; "nobody knows that better than me; but I hope that poor little thing has got another one to-day that'll do more for her than you can."
"What, yourself, mother? I don't know about that."
"No, no; do you think I mean myself? there, turn it quick,
Sally! Miss Alice has been here."
"How? this evening?"
"Just a little before dark, on her gray pony. She came in for a minute, and I took her that'll burn, Sally! I took her in to see the child while she was asleep, and I told her all you told me about her. She didn't say much, but she looked at her very sweet, as she always does, and I guess, there now I'll see after my little sleeper."
And presently Mrs. Van Brunt came to the bedside with a light, and her arm full of Ellen's dry clothes. Ellen felt as if she could have put her arms round her kind old friend, and hugged her with all her heart; but it was not her way to show her feelings before strangers. She suffered Mrs. Van Brunt to dress her in silence, only saying, with a sigh, "How kind you are to me, Maam!" to which the old lady replied with a kiss, and telling her she mustn't say a word about that.