She sat down and
could not speak--the room whirled round and round--her white
feebleness touched Mrs. Morgan's heart.
"You've had no tea, I guess. Indeed, and the girls are very
careless." She rang the bell with energy, and seconded her pull
by going to the door and shouting out sharp directions, in Welsh,
to Nest and Gwen, and three or four other rough, kind, slatternly
servants.
They brought her tea, which was comfortable, according to the
idea of comfort prevalent in that rude hospitable place; there
was plenty to eat; too much indeed, for it revolted the appetite
it was intended to provoke. But the heartiness with which the
kind rosy waiter pressed her to eat, and the scolding Mrs. Morgan
gave her when she found the buttered toast untouched (toast on
which she had herself desired that the butter might not be
spared), did Ruth more good than the tea. She began to hope, and
to long for the morning when hope might have become certainty. It
was all in vain that she was told that the room she had been in
all day was at her service; she did not say a word, but she was
not going to bed that night of all nights in the year, when life
or death hung trembling in the balance. She went into the bedroom
till the bustling house was still, and heard busy feet passing to
and fro into the room she might not enter; and voices, imperious,
though hushed down to a whisper, ask for innumerable things.
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