"Yes," said Alice, "and my English ears don't like it at all."
"Then they shan't hear it," said Ellen, kissing her. "I don't know what makes me say it I never used to. But I've got more to tell you I've had more visitors. Who do you think came to see me? you'd never guess Nancy Vawse! Mr. Van Brunt came in the very nick of time, when I was almost worried to death with her. Only think of her coming up here unknown to every body! And she stayed an age, and how she did go on! She cracked nuts on the hearth; she got every stitch of my clothes out of my trunk, and scattered them over the floor; she tried to make me drink gruel, till, between us we spilled a great parcel on the bed; and she had begun to tickle me when Mr. Van Brunt came. Oh! wasn't I glad to see him! And when Aunt Fortune came up and saw it all, she was as angry as she could be; and she scolded and scolded, till at last I told her it was none of my doing I couldn't help it at all and she needn't talk so to me about it; and then she said it was my fault, the whole of it! that if I hadn't scraped acquaintance with Nancy, when she had forbidden me all this would never have happened."
"There is some truth in that, isn't there, Ellen?"
"Perhaps so; but I think it might all have happened whether or no; and, at any rate, it is a little hard to talk so to me about it now, when it's all over, and can't be helped. Oh, I have been so tired to-day, Miss Alice! Aunt Fortune has been in such a bad humour."
"What put her in a bad humour?"
"Why, all this about Nancy in the first place; and then I know she didn't like Mr. Van Brunt's bringing the rocking-chair for me she couldn't say much, but I could see by her face. And then Mrs. Van Brunt's coming I don't think she liked that. Oh, Mrs. Van Brunt came to see me this morning, and brought me a custard. How many people are kind to me, everywhere I go."
"I hope, dear Ellen, you don't forget whose kindness sends them all."
"I don't, Miss Alice; I always think of that now; and it seems, you can't think how pleasant, to me sometimes."
"Then I hope you can bear unkindness from one poor woman who, after all, isn't as happy as you are without feeling any ill-will towards her in return."
"I don't think I feel ill-will towards her," said Ellen; "I always try as hard as I can not to; but I can't like her, Miss Alice; and I do get out of patience. It's very easy to put me out of patience, I think; it takes almost nothing, sometimes."