"How did you get into this scrape?" said Nancy; "this was none of my doings anyhow. It'll never be dry weather, Ellen, where you are. I won't put on my Sunday go-to-meeting clothes when I go a walking with you. You had ought to ha' been a duck or a goose, or something like that. What's that for, Mr. Van Brunt!"
This last query, pretty sharply spoken, was in answer to a light touch of that gentleman's hand upon Miss Nancy's ear, which came rather as a surprise. He deigned no reply.
"You're a fine gentleman!" said Nancy, tartly.
"Have you done what I gave you to do?" said Mr. Van Brunt, coolly.
"Yes there!" said Nancy, holding up Ellen's bare feet on one hand, while the fingers of the other, secretly applied in ticklish fashion to the soles of them, caused Ellen suddenly to start and scream.
"Get up!" said Mr. Van Brunt. Nancy didn't think best to disobey. "Mother, han't you got nothing you want Nancy to do?"
"Sally," said Mrs. Van Brunt, "you and Nancy go and fetch here a couple of pails of hot water right away."
"Go, and mind what you are about," said Mr. Van Brunt; "and after that keep out of this room, and don't whisper again till I give you leave. Now, Miss Ellen, dear, how do you feel?"
Ellen said in words that she felt "nicely," but the eyes and the smile said a great deal more; Ellen's heart was running over.
"Oh, she'll feel nicely directly, I'll be bound," said Mrs.
Van Brunt; "wait till she get her feet soaked, and then!"