be a burden to some one all one's life long, would be to an active,
wilful, strong girl of seventeen, anxious to get on in the world, so as,
if possible, to help her brothers and sisters. So I shall only say, that
one among the blessings which arose out of what seemed at the time a
great, black sorrow was, that Lady Ludlow for many years took me, as it
were, into her own especial charge; and now, as I lie still and alone in
my old age, it is such a pleasure to think of her!

Mrs. Medlicott was great as a nurse, and I am sure I can never be
grateful enough to her memory for all her kindness. But she was puzzled
to know how to manage me in other ways. I used to have long, hard fits
of crying; and, thinking that I ought to go home--and yet what could they
do with me there?--and a hundred and fifty other anxious thoughts, some
of which I could tell to Mrs. Medlicott, and others I could not. Her way
of comforting me was hurrying away for some kind of tempting or
strengthening food--a basin of melted calves-foot jelly was, I am sure
she thought, a cure for every woe.

"There take it, dear, take it!" she would say; "and don't go on fretting
for what can't be helped."

But, I think, she got puzzled at length at the non-efficacy of good
things to eat; and one day, after I had limped down to see the doctor, in
Mrs. Medlicott's sitting-room--a room lined with cupboards, containing
preserves and dainties of all kinds, which she perpetually made, and
never touched herself--when I was returning to my bed-room to cry away
the afternoon, under pretence of arranging my clothes, John Footman
brought me a message from my lady (with whom the doctor had been having a
conversation) to bid me go to her in that private sitting-room at the end
of the suite of apartments, about which I spoke in describing the day of