I rarely failed to put her to sleep, and as she never woke when I laid her down, I have since suspected myself of unconscious mesmerism.
One night, when I had long been asleep, I was awakened by Matilda's hysterical sobs.

She "couldn't get into a comfortable position;" her "back ached so." Our bed was very narrow, and I commonly lay so poised upon the outer edge to give Matilda room that more than once I have rolled on to the floor.
We spoke in undertones, but Eleanor was awake.
"Come and see if you can sleep with me, Margery," she said.

"I lie very straight." I scrambled out, and willingly crept in behind Eleanor, into her still narrower bed; and after tearful thanks and protestations, poor Matilda doubled herself at a restful angle, and fell asleep.
Happily for me, I was very well.

Eleanor suffered from the utter change of mode of life a good deal; but she had great powers of endurance.
Fatigue, and "muddle on the brain," often hindered her at night from learning the lessons for next day.

But she worked at them nevertheless; and tasks, that by her own account she "drove into her head" in bed, though she was quite unable to say them that evening, seemed to arrange themselves properly in her memory before the morning.
Matilda's ill-health came to a crisis at last.