"That's as good an apple as you've got in the basket; that's a real Orson pippin a very fine kind. I'll fetch you some up from home some day, though, that are better than the best of these."
The pork was all packed; the kettle was lifted off the fire;
Mr. Van Brunt was wiping his hands from the salt.
"And now, I suppose I must go," said Ellen, with a little sigh.
"Why, I must go," said he; "so I suppose I may as well let you out of your tent first."
"I have had such a nice time," said Ellen; "I had got so tired of doing nothing up-stairs. I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Van Brunt. But," said she, stopping as she had taken up her basket to go, "aren't you going to put the hams in the pickle?"
"No," said he, laughing, "it must wait to get cold first. But you'll make a capital farmer's wife, there's no mistake."
Ellen blushed, and ran up stairs with her apples. To bestow them safely in her closet was her first care; the rest of the morning was spent in increasing weariness and listlessness. She had brought down her little hymn-book, thinking to amuse herself with learning a hymn, but it would not do; eyes and head both refused their part of the work; and when at last Mr. Van Brunt came in to a late dinner, he found Ellen seated flat on the hearth before the fire, her right arm curled round the hard wooden bottom of one of the chairs, and her head pillowed upon that, fast asleep.
"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Van Brunt, "what's become of that 'ere rocking-cheer?"
"It's upstairs, I suppose. You can fetch it if you've a mind to," answered Miss Fortune, drily enough.
He did so immediately; and Ellen barely waked up to feel herself lifted from the floor, and placed in the friendly rocking-chair; Mr. Van Brunt remarking, at the same time, that "it might be well enough to let well folks lie on the floor and sleep on cheers, but cushions warn't a bit too soft for sick ones."