he drew near enough for her to watch him as he hooked his
ladder on the lamp-irons, ran up and lit the lamp, then
shouldered the ladder and marched off quick, the light
glancing on his wet oil-skin hat, rough greatcoat, and
lantern, and on the pavement and iron railings. The veriest
moth could not have followed the light with more perseverance
than did Ellen's eyes, till the lamplighter gradually
disappeared from view, and the last lamp she could see was
lit; and not till then did it occur to her that there was such
a place as indoors. She took her face from the window. The
room was dark and cheerless, and Ellen felt stiff and chilly.
However, she made her way to the fire, and having found the
poker, she applied it gently to the Liverpool coal with such
good effect, that a bright ruddy blaze sprang up, and lighted
the whole room. Ellen smiled at the result of her experiment.
"That is something like," said she, to herself; "who says I
can't poke the fire? Now, let us see if I can't do something
else. Do but see how these chairs are standing — one would
think we had had a sewing-circle here — there, go back to your
places — that looks a little better; now, these curtains must
come down, and I may as well shut the shutters too — and now
this tablecloth must be content to hang straight, and Mamma's
box and the books must lie in their places, and not all
helter-skelter. Now, I wish Mamma would wake up; I should
think she might. I don't believe she is asleep either — she
don't look as if she was."

Ellen was right in this; her mother's face did not wear the
look of sleep, nor indeed of repose at all; the lips were
compressed, and the brow not calm. To try, however, whether