"I always have when I go there. Now, Ellen, there is an example of contentment for you. If ever a woman loved husband and children and friends, Mrs. Vawse loved hers; I know this from those who knew her long ago; and now, look at her. Of them all, she has none left but the orphan daughter of her youngest son, and you know a little what sort of a child that is."
"She must be a very bad girl," said Ellen; "you can't think what stories she told me about her grandmother."
"Poor Nancy!" said Alice. "Mrs. Vawse has no money nor property of any kind, except what is in her house; but there is not a more independent woman breathing. She does all sorts of things to support herself. Now, for instance, Ellen, if anybody is sick within ten miles round, the family are too happy to get Mrs. Vawse for a nurse. She is an admirable one. Then she goes out tailoring at the farmers' houses; she brings home wool and returns it spun into yarn; she brings home yarn and knits it up into stockings and socks; all sorts of odd jobs. I have seen her picking hops; she isn't above doing anything, and yet she never forgets her own dignity. I think, wherever she goes and whatever she is about, she is at all times one of the most truly lady-like persons I have ever seen. And everybody respects her; everybody likes to gain her good will; she is known all over the country; and all the country are her friends."
"They pay her for doing these things, don't they?"
"Certainly; not often in money; more commonly in various kinds of matters that she wants flour, and sugar, and Indian meal, and pork, and ham, and vegetables, and wool anything; it is but a little of each that she wants. She has friends that would not permit her to earn another sixpence if they could help it, but she likes better to live as she does. And she is always as you saw her to-day cheerful and happy as a little girl."
Ellen was turning over Alice's last words, and thinking that little girls were not always the cheerfullest and happiest creatures in the world, when Alice suddenly exclaimed, "It is snowing! Come, Ellen, we must make haste now!" and set off at a quickened pace. Quick as they might, they had gone not a hundred yards when the whole air was filled with the falling flakes, and the wind, which had lulled for a little, now rose with greater violence, and swept round the mountain furiously. The storm had come in good earnest, and promised to be no trifling one. Alice and Ellen ran on, holding each other's hands and strengthening themselves against the blast, but their journey became every moment more difficult. The air was dark with the thick-falling snow; the wind seemed to blow in every direction by turns, but chiefly against them, blinding their eyes with the snow, and making it necessary to use no small effort to keep on their way. Ellen hardly knew where she went, but allowed herself to be pulled along by Alice, or, as well, pulled her along it was hard to say which hurried most. In the midst of this dashing on down the hill, Alice all at once came to a sudden stop.
"Where's the Captain?" said she.
"I don't know," said Ellen "I haven't thought of him since we left Mrs. Vawse's."
Alice turned her back to the wind, and looked up the road they had come there was nothing but wind and snow there; how furiously it blew! Alice called "Pussy!"
"Shall we walk up the road a little way, or shall we stand and wait for him here?" said Ellen, trembling, half from exertion and half from a vague fear of she knew not what.