"No, but I'll finish it to-night," replied Ellen.
"Why, it'll take you pretty much all night to finish this," she said, lifting and examining her sister's dress. "How in the world did you get so behindhand, Ellen?"
"This is a harder dress to make than your mother's," replied Ellen; "and besides having had less help on it, my head has ached very badly all the afternoon."
Without seeming to notice the last reason given, Mary said—
"Well, if you can possibly get it done to-night, Ellen, you must do so. It would never answer in the world not to have all the dresses done by to-morrow night."
"I will have it done," was the brief reply, made in a low tone.
Jane's dress was taken home that night, unfinished by full six or seven hours' work. As Ellen had feared, she found Margaret suffering much from her cough. After preparing some food for her sister, whose appetite still remained good, she drank a cup of tea, and then sat down to work upon the mourning garment. Towards midnight, Margaret, who had fallen asleep early in the evening, began to grow restless, and to moan as if in pain. Every now and then, Ellen would pause in her work and look towards the bed, with an anxious countenance; and once or twice she got up, and stood over her sister; but she did not awake. It was three o'clock when the last stitch was taken, and then Margaret's cough had awakened her, and she seemed to suffer so much from that and from difficult breathing, that Ellen, even after lying down, did not go to sleep for an hour. It was long after sunrise when she awoke.
"Must you go to-day, too?" inquired Margaret, looking into her sister's face anxiously, on seeing her, after the hastily prepared breakfast had been eaten, take up her bonnet and shawl.
"Yes, Margaret, I must go to-day. There is one more dress to be made, and that must be done. But after to-day, I won't go out anywhere again until you are better."
"I don't think I shall ever be better again, Ellen," said the sick girl. "I am getting so weak; and I feel just as if I shouldn't stay here but a little while. You don't know how strange I feel sometimes. Oh, I wish you didn't have to go out to-day!" And she looked so earnestly into the face of her sister, that the tears sprung into Ellen's eyes.