For the first time in her life there was a great want of ready money; she could scarcely obtain the servants' wages; and the bill for the spring seeds was a heavy weight on her conscience.

For Miss Monro's methodical habits had taught her pupil great exactitude as to all money matters.
Then her father's temper had become very uncertain.

He avoided being alone with her whenever he possibly could; and the consciousness of this, and of the terrible mutual secret which was the cause of this estrangement, were the reasons why Ellinor never recovered her pretty youthful bloom after her illness.

Of course it was to this that the outside world attributed her changed appearance.

They would shake their heads and say, "Ah, poor Miss Wilkins! What a lovely creature she was before that fever!" But youth is youth, and will assert itself in a certain elasticity of body and spirits; and at times Ellinor forgot that fearful night for several hours together.