"What do you get up so early for?"
"You know, Ma'am, I told you some time ago. I want some time to myself."
"It is not good for you to be up so long before breakfast, and in these cold mornings. Do not rise in future till I send for you."
"But, Grandmother, that is the only time for me there isn't an hour after breakfast that I can have regularly to myself; and I cannot be happy if I do not have some time."
"Let it be as I said," said Mrs. Lindsay.
"Couldn't you let me come to you at eleven o'clock again,
Ma'am? do, Grandmother!"
Mrs. Lindsay touched her lips; a way of silencing her that Ellen particularly disliked, and which both Mr. Lindsay and his mother was accustomed to use.
She thought a great deal on the subject, and came soberly to the conclusion that it was her duty to disobey. "I promised John," she said to herself; "I will never break that promise! I'll do anything rather. And besides, if I had not, it is just as much my duty, a duty that no one here has a right to command me against. I will do what I think right, come what may."
She could not, without its coming to the knowledge of her grandmother. A week or two after the former conversation, Mrs. Lindsay made inquiries of Mason, her woman, who was obliged to confess that Miss Ellen's light was always burning when she went to call her.
"Ellen," said Mrs. Lindsay the same day, "have you obeyed me in what I told you the other morning? about lying in bed till you are sent for?"