thout
the power to give them much relief. Jane was dying with consumption.
The other member of the family was the old father, still more helpless;
past work and dependent on another child for all but the house they
lived in. That, in earlier days, had been made their own. Eleanor was
their best friend, and many a day, and night too, had been a sunbeam of
comfort in the poor house. She now, when the day was far enough on its
wane, provided herself with a little basket of grapes, ordered her
pony, and rode swiftly down to the village; not without attendance this
time, though confessing bitterly to herself the truth of her mother's
allegations. At the cottage door she took the basket; ordered the pony
should come for her next morning at eight o'clock, and went into the
cottage; feeling as if she had for a little space turned her back upon
troublesome people and things and made herself free. She went in
softly, and was garrulously welcomed by her old nurse and her husband.
It was so long since they had seen her! and she was going to be such a
great lady! and they knew she would not forget them nevertheless. It
was not flattery. It was true speech. Eleanor asked for Jane, and with
her basket went on into the upper little room where the sick girl lay.
There felt, when she had got above the ground floor, as if she was
tolerably safe.

It was a little low room under the thatch, in which Eleanor now hid
herself. A mere large closet of a room, though it boasted of a
fireplace, happily. A small lattice under the shelving roof let in what
it could of the light of a dying November day. The bed with its sick
occupant, two chairs, a little table, and a bit of carpet on the floor,
were all the light revealed. Eleanor's welcome here was also most
sincere; less talkative, it was yet more glad than that given by the
old couple down stairs; a light shone all over the pale face of the
sick girl, and the weary eye kindled, at sight of her friend.

Extreme neatness was not the characteristic of this little low room,
simply for want of able hands to ensure it. Eleanor's first work was to
set Jane to eating grapes; her next, to put the place in tidy order.
"Lady Rythdale shall be useful once more in her life," she thought. She
brushed up the floor, swept the hearth, demolished cobwebs on the
walls, and rubbed down the chairs. She had borrowed an apron and cap
from old Mrs. Lewis. The sick girl watched her with eager eyes.

"I can't bear to s