"You shall see 'em right away, dear, and come as often as you like, too. Sally, just take a basket, and go fetch them kittens here."
Upon this, Mr. Van Brunt began to talk about its being time to go, if they were going. But his mother insisted that Ellen should stay where she was; she said she was not fit to go home that night, that she oughtn't to walk a step, and that " 'Brahm" should go and tell Miss Fortune the child was safe and well, and would be with her early in the morning. Mr. Van Brunt shook his head two or three times, but finally agreed, to Ellen's great joy. When he came back, she was sitting on the floor before the fire, with all the five kittens in her lap, and the old mother cat walking around and over her and them. But she looked up with a happier face then he had ever seen her wear, and told him she was "so much obliged to him for taking such a long walk for her;" and Mr. Van Brunt felt that, like his oxen, he could have done a great deal more with pleasure.
CHAPTER XIII.
Hope deferred.
Before the sun was up the next morning, Mrs. Van Brunt came into Ellen's room, and aroused her.
"It's a real shame to wake you up," she said, "when you were sleeping so finely; but 'Brahm wants to be off to his work, and won't stay for breakfast. Slept sound, did you?"
"Oh, yes, indeed; as sound as a top," said Ellen, rubbing her eyes; "I am hardly awake yet."
"I declare it's too bad," said Mrs. Van Brunt "but there's no help for it. You don't feel no headache, do you, nor pain in your bones?"
"No, Maam, not a bit of it; I feel nicely."
"Ah! well," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "then your tumble into the brook didn't do you any mischief; I thought it wouldn't. Poor little soul!"