"No, no, children. We must do as Aunt Rachel says, and she wants Edith back in a fortnight at the outside."
Both father and mother, though they would not repeat Miss Harley's words, could not help telling their daughter how pleased they were with her.
"You have been a real help to your father, Edith," said Mrs. Harley. "Now you have done so well with Aunt Rachel, we may feel that you are provided for, and I am sure you will be glad to think that your little brothers and sisters will have many things they must have gone without if you had had to be considered too."
A Trying Time
Edith felt rewarded then for all it had cost her to please her aunt and work quietly on at Silchester, and she went back to Ivy House with all her good resolutions strengthened, and her love for the dear ones at home stronger than ever.
For a while things went on without much change. The wild, country girl was fast growing into a graceful accomplished young woman, when two events happened which caused her a great deal of thought and anxiety.
First, Aunt Rachel, who had all her life enjoyed excellent health, fell rather seriously ill. She had a sharp attack of bronchitis, and instead of terminating in two or three weeks, as she confidently expected, the disease lingered about her, and at last settled into a chronic form, and made her quite an invalid.
Both Edith and Stimson had a hard time while Miss Harley was at the worst. Unaccustomed to illness, she proved a very difficult patient, and kept niece and maid continually running up and downstairs, and ministering to her real and fancied wants.
The warm, shut-up room where she now spent so many hours tried Edith greatly, and she longed inexpressibly sometimes for the free air of her dear Winchcomb fields, and the open doors and windows of the old house at home. Life at Silchester had always been trying to her; it became much more so when she had to devote herself constantly to an exacting invalid, who never seemed to think that young minds and eyes and hands needed rest and recreation—something over and above continued work and study.
Even when she was almost too ill to listen, Aunt Rachel insisted on the hours of daily reading; she made Edith get through long tasks of household needlework, and, to use her own expression, "kept her niece to her duties" quite as rigidly in sickness as in health.