"I thought there were people who were the servants of Christ, and yet did not join any church," Matilda said softly.

"By not doing it, they as good as say to the world that they are not His servants. And the world judges accordingly. I have known people under such a delusion; but when they were honest, I have always known them to come out of it. If you give all you have to the Lord Jesus, you must certainly give your influence."

"But, I thought I might wait," Tilly said again.

"Till when?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

"Wait for what?"

"Till I was more like what—I ought to be, Mr. Richmond."

"Till you were more like the Lord Jesus?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you not think the quickest way to grow like Him would be to do and obey every word He says?"

Matilda bowed her head a little.

"You will be more likely to grow good and strong that way than any other; and I am sure the Lord will be more likely to help you if you trust Him, than if you do not trust Him."

"I think so too," Matilda assented.

"Then we will do everything, shall we, that we think our Lord would like to have us do? and we will trust Him to help us through with it?" Mr. Richmond said, with an affectionate look at the child beside him; and Matilda met the look and answered it with another.

"But, Mr. Richmond——"

"What is it?"

"There is one question I should like to ask."

"Ask it."

"Why ought people to be baptized?"

"Because our Lord commands it. Isn't that a good reason?"

"Yes, sir; but—what does it mean, Mr. Richmond?"

"It is a way of saying to the world, that we have left it, and belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a way of saying to the world, that His blood has washed away our sins and His Spirit has made our hearts clean; or that we trust Him to do both things for us. And it is the appointed way of saying all this to the world; His appointed way. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, do you not think that those who love the Lord Jesus, ought to be glad to follow His will in this matter?"

"Yes, sir," Matilda said again, raising her eyes frankly to Mr. Richmond's face.

"Would you be willing to be left out, when next I baptize some of those who wish to make it publicly known that they are Christ's?"

"No, sir." And presently she added. "When will that be, Mr. Richmond?"

"I do not know," he answered, thoughtfully. "Not immediately. You and I must have some more talks before that time."

"You are very good to me, Mr. Richmond," Matilda said, gratefully.

"Have we said all we ought to say this time? Are there any more questions to bring up?"

"I haven't any to bring up," Matilda said.

"Is all clear that we have been talking about?"

"I think so."

"Now, will you be good to me, and stay and take supper with me? That knock at the door means that Miss Redwood would like to have me know that supper is ready. And you shall have this apple we have been roasting."

"Mr. Richmond, I think mamma would be frightened if I did not go home."

"She does not know where you are?"

"Nobody knows," said Matilda.

"Then it won't do to let you stay. You shall come another time, and we will roast another apple, won't you?"

"I should like to come," said Matilda. "Mr. Richmond, didn't you say you were going to talk to the Band and explain things, when we have our meetings?"

"I did say so. What do you want explained?"

"Some time,—I would like to know just all it means, to be a servant of Christ."

"All it means," said Mr. Richmond. "Well, it means a good deal, Tilly. I think we had better begin there with our explanations. I shall not make it a lecture; it will be more like a class; so you may ask as many questions as you please."



CHAPTER VI.

The light of day was darkening fast, as Matilda ran home. Even the western sky gave no glow, when she reached her own gate and went in. After all, she had run but a very little way, in her first hurry; the rest of the walk was taken with sober steps.

When she came down-stairs, she found the lamp lit and all the young heads of the family clustering together to look at something. It was Anne's purchase, she found; Anne had spent her aunt's gift in the purchase of a new silk dress; and she was displaying it.

"It is a lovely colour," said Maria. "I think that shade of—what do you call it? is just the prettiest in the world. What do you call it, Clarissa? and where did you get it, Anne?"

"It is pearl gray," said Clarissa.

"I would have got blue, while I was about it," said Letitia; "there is nothing like blue; and it becomes you, Anne. You ought to have got blue. I would have had one dress that suited me, if I was you, if I never had another."

"This will suit me, I think," said Anne.

"Aren't you going to trim it with anything? Dresses are so much trimmed now-a-days; and this colour will not be anything unless you trim it."

Anne replied by producing the trimming. The exclamations of delight and approval lasted for several minutes.

"What are you going to get, Letitia?" Maria asked.

"I have not decided."

"I don't know, but I will have a watch," said Maria. "You can get a very good silver watch, a really good one, you know for twenty-five dollars."

"But a silver watch!" said Anne. "I would not wear anything but a gold watch."

"How am I going to get a gold watch, I should like to know?" said Maria. "I think it would be splendid."

"But what do you want of a watch, Maria?" her little sister asked.

"Oh, here is Matilda coming out! Just like her! Not a word about Anne's dress; and now she says, what do I want with a watch. Why, what other people want with one; I want to see the time of day."

"I don't think you do," said Matilda. "When do you?"

"Why, I should like to know in school, when it is recess time; and at home, when it is time to go to school."

"But the bell rings," said Matilda.

"Well, I don't always hear the bell, child."

"But when you don't hear it, I tell you."

"Yes, and it's very tiresome to have you telling me, too. I'd rather have my own watch. But I don't know what I will have; sometimes I think I'll just buy summer dresses, and then for once I'd have a plenty; I do like to have plenty of anything. And there's a necklace and earrings at Mr. Kurtz's that I want. Such lovely earrings!"

"Well, Matilda, what are you thinking of?" Letitia burst forth. "Such a face! One would think it was wicked to wear earrings. What is it, you queer child?"

But Matilda did not say what she was thinking of. The elder ladies came in, and the party adjourned to the tea-table.

A few hours later, when the girls had gone to their room, Matilda asked—

"When are you going to look for new scholars, Maria?"

"What?" was Maria's energetic and not very graceful response.

"When are you going to look for some new scholars to bring to the school?"

"The Sunday-School!" said Maria. "I thought you meant the school where we go every day. I don't know."

"You promised you would try."

"Well, so I will, when I see any I can bring."

"But don't you think you ought to go and look for them?"

"How can I, Tilly? I don't know where to go; and I haven't got time, besides."

"I think I know where we could go," said Matilda, "and maybe we could get one, at any rate. Don't you know the Dows' house? on the turnpike road?—beyond the bridge ever so far?"

"The Dows'!" said Maria. "Yes, I know the Dows' house; but who's there? Nothing but old folks."

"Yes, there are two children; I have seen them; two or three; but they don't come to school."

"Then I don't believe they want to," said Maria; "they could come if they wanted to, I am sure."

"Don't you think we might go and ask them? Perhaps they would come if anybody asked them."

"Yes, we might," said Maria; "but you see, Tilly, I haven't any time. It'll take me every bit of time I can get between now and Sunday to finish putting the braid on that frock; you have no idea how much time it takes. It curls round this way, and then twists over that way, and then gives two curls, so and so; and it takes a great while to do it. I almost wish I had chosen an easier pattern; only this is so pretty."

"But you promised, Maria."

"I didn't promise to go and look up people, child. I only promised to do what I could. Besides, what have you got to do with it? You did not promise at all."

"I will go with you, if you will go up to the Dows'," said Matilda.

"Oh, well!—don't worry, and I'll see about it."

"But will you go? Come, Maria, let us go."

"When?"

"Any afternoon. To-morrow."

"What makes you want to go?" said Maria, looking at her.

"I think you ought to go," Matilda answered, demurely.

"And I say, what have you got to do with it? I don't see what particular concern of mine the Dows are, anyhow."

Matilda sat a long while thinking after this speech. She was on the floor, pulling off her stockings and unlacing her boots; and while her fingers moved slowly, drawing out the laces, her cogitations were very busy. What concern were the Dows of hers or Maria's? They were not pleasant people to go near, she judged, from the look of their house and dooryard as she had seen it in passing; and the uncombed, fly-away head of the little girl gave her a shudder as she remembered it. They were not people that were often seen in church; they could not be good; maybe they used bad language; certainly they could not be expected to know how to "behave." Slowly the laces were pulled out of Matilda's boots, and her face grew into portentous gravity.

"Aren't you coming to bed?" said Maria. "What can you be thinking of?"

"I am thinking of the Dows?"

"What about them? I never thought about them three times in my life."

"But oughtn't we to think about people, Maria?"

"Nice people."

"I mean, people that are not nice."

"It will be new times when you do," said Maria. "Come! let the Dows alone and come to bed."

"Maria," said her little sister as she obeyed this request, "I was thinking that Jesus thought about people that were not nice."

"Well?" said Maria. "Do lie down! what is the use of getting into bed, if you are going to sit bolt upright like that and talk lectures? I don't see what has got into you."

"Maria, it seems to me, now I think of it, that those were the particular people He did care about."

"Don't you think He cared about good people?" said Maria, indignantly.

"But they were not good at first. Nobody was good at first—till He made them good. He said He didn't come to the good people; don't you remember?"

"Well, what do you mean by all that? Are we not to care for anybody but the people that are not good? A nice life we should have of it?"

"Maria," said her little sister, very thoughtfully, "I wonder what sort of a life He had?"

"Tilly!" said Maria, rising up in her turn, "what has come to you? What book have you been reading? I shall tell mamma."

"I have not been reading any book," said Matilda.

"Then lie down and quit talking. How do you expect I am going to sleep?"

"Let us go and see what we can do at the Dows, Maria, to-morrow, won't you?"

But Maria either did not or would not hear; so the matter passed for that night. But the next day Matilda brought it up again. Maria found excuses to put her off. Matilda, however, was not to be put off permanently; she never forgot; and day after day the subject came up for discussion, until Maria at last consented.

"I am going because you tease me so, Tilly," she said, as they set forth from the gate. "Just for that and nothing else. I don't like it a bit."

"But you promised."

"I didn't."

"To bring in new scholars?"

"I did not promise I would bring the Dow children; and I don't believe they'll come."

The walk before the children was not long, and yet it almost took them out of the village. They passed the corner this time without turning, keeping the road, which was indeed part of the great high road which took Shadywalk in its way, as it took many another village. The houses in this direction soon began to scatter further apart from each other. They were houses of more pretension, too, with grounds and gardens and fruit trees about them; and built in styles that were notable, if not according to any particular rule. Soon the ground began to descend sharply towards the bed of a brook, which brawled along with impetuous waters towards a mill somewhere out of sight. It was a full, fine stream, mimicking the rapids and eddies of larger streams, with all their life and fury given to its smaller current. The waters looked black and wintry in contrast with the white snow of the shores. A foot-bridge spanned the brook, alongside of another bridge for carriages; and just beyond, the black walls of a ruin showed where another fine mill had once stood. That mill had been burnt. It was an old story; the girls did not so much as think about it now. Matilda's glance had gone the other way, where the stream rushed along from under the bridge and hurried down a winding glen, bordered by a road that seemed well traversed. A house could be seen down the glen, just where the road turned in company with the brook and was lost to view.

"I wonder who lives down there?" said Matilda.

"I don't know. Yes, I do, too; but I have forgotten."

"I wonder if they come to church."

"I don't know that; and I shall not go to ask them. Why, Matilda, you never cared before whether people went to church."

"Don't you care now?" was Matilda's rejoinder.

"No! I don't care. I don't know those people. They may go to fifty churches, for aught I can tell."

"But, Maria,"—said her little sister.

"What?"

"I do not understand you."

"Very likely. That isn't strange."

"But, Maria,—you promised the other night—O Maria, what things you promised!"

"What then?" said Maria. "What do you mean? What did I promise?"

"You promised you would be a servant of Christ," Matilda said, anxiously.

"Well, what if I did?" said Maria. "Of course I did; what then. Am I to find out whether everybody in Shadywalk goes to church, because I promised that? It is not my business."

"Whose business is it?"

"It is Mr. Richmond's business and Mr. Everett's business; and Mr. Schoenflocker's business. I don't see what makes it mine."

"Then you ought not to have said that you would bring new scholars to the school, I think, if you did not mean to do it; and whom do you mean to carry the message to, Maria? You said you would carry the message."

"I don't know what carrying the message means," said Maria.

Matilda let the question drop, and they went on their way in silence; rising now by another steep ascent on the other side of the brook, having crossed the bridge. The hill was steep enough to give their lungs play without talking. At the top of the hill the road forked; one branch turned off southwards; the high road turned east; the sisters followed this. A little way further, and both slackened their steps involuntarily as the house they were going to came full in view.

It was like a great many others; brown with the weather, and having a certain forlorn look that a house gets when there are no loving eyes within it to care how it looks. The doors did not hang straight; the windows had broken panes; a tub here and a broken pitcher there stood in sight of every passer-by. A thin wreath of smoke curled up from the chimney, so it was certain that people lived there; but nothing else looked like it. The girls went in through the rickety gate. Over the house the bare branches of a cherry tree gave no promise of summery bloom; and some tufts of brown stems standing up from the snow hardly suggested the gay hollyhocks of the last season. The two girls slackened their steps yet more, and seemed not to know very well how to go on.

"I don't like it, Tilly," Maria said. "I have a mind to give it up."

"Oh, I wouldn't, Maria," the little one replied; but she looked puzzled and doubtful.

"Well, suppose they don't want to see us in here? it don't look as if they did."

"We can try, Maria; it will do no harm to try."

"I don't know that," said Maria. "I'll never come such an errand again, Matilda; never! I give you notice of that. What shall I do? Knock?"

"I suppose so."

Maria knocked. The next minute the upper half of the door was opened, and an oldish woman looked out. A dirty woman, with her hair all in fly-away order, and her dress very slatternly as well as soiled.

"What do you want?"

"Are there some children here?" Maria began.

"Children? yes, there's children here. There's my children."

"Do they go to school?"

"Has somebody been stealin' something, and you want to know if it's my children have done it?" said the woman. "'Cos they don't go to no school that you ever see."

"I did not mean any such thing," said Maria, quite taken aback.

"Well, what did you mean?" the woman asked sharply.

"We want to see the children," Matilda put in. "May we come in and get warm, if you please?"

The woman still held the door in her hand, and looked at the last speaker from head to foot; then half reluctantly opened the door.

"I don't know as it'll hurt you to come in," she said; "but it won't do you much good; the place is all in a clutter, and it always is. Come along in, if you want to! and shut the door; 'tain't so warm here you'll need the wind in to help you. Want the children, did you say? what do you want of 'em?"

Matilda thought privately that the wind would have been a good companion after all; no sooner was the door shut, than all remembrance of fresh air faded away. An inexpressible atmosphere filled the house, in which frying fat, smoke, soapsuds, and the odour of old garments, mingled and combined in proportions known to none but such dwelling-places. Yet it was not as bad as it might have been, by many degrees; the house was a little frame house, open at the joints; and it stood in the midst of heaven's free air; all the winds that came from the mountains and the river swept over and around it, came down the chimney sometimes, and breathed blessed breaths through every opening door and shackling window-frame. But to Matilda it seemed as bad as could be. So it seemed to her eyes too. Nothing clean; nothing comfortable; nothing in order; scraps of dinner on the floor; scraps of work under the table; a dirty cat in the corner by the stove; a wash tub occupying the other corner. The woman had her sleeves rolled up, and now plunged her arms into the tub again.

"You can put in a stick of wood, if you want to," she said; "I guess the fire's got down. What did you come here for, hey? I hain't heard that yet, and I'm in a takin' to find out."

"We thought maybe your children might like to go to Sunday-School," said Maria, with a great deal of trepidation; "and we just came to ask them. That's all."

"How did ye know but they went already?" the woman asked, looking at Maria from the corner of her eye.

"I didn't know. I just came to ask them."

"Well, I just advise you not to mix yourself with people's affairs till you do know a little about 'em. What business is it o' yourn, eh, whether my children goes to Sunday-School? Sunday-School! what a poke it is!"

"They did not come to our Sunday-School," said Matilda, for her sister was nonplussed; "and we would like to have them come; unless they were going somewhere else."

"They may speak for themselves," said Mrs. Dow; and she opened an inner door, and called in a shrill voice—"Araminty!—Jemimy!—Alexander!—come right along down, and if ye don't I'll whip ye."

She went back to her washing-tub, and Maria and Matilda looked to see three depressed specimens of young human life appear at that inner door; but first tumbled down and burst in a sturdy, rugged young rascal of some eight or nine years; and after him a girl a little older, with the blackest of black eyes and hair, the latter hanging straight over her face and ears. The eyes of both fastened upon their strange visitors, and seemed as if they would move no more.

"Them girls is come to get you to their Sunday-School," said the mother. "Don't you want for to go?"

No answer, and no move of the black eyes. Matilda certainly thought they looked as if they feared the lifting of no mortal hand, their mother's or any other.

"Would you like to go to Sunday-School?" inquired Maria politely, driven to speak by the necessities of the silence. But she might as well have asked Mrs. Dow's wash-tub. The mother laughed a little to herself.

"Guess you might as well go along back the road ye come!" she said. "You won't get my Araminty Jemimy into no Sunday-School o' yourn this time. Maybe when she's growed older and wiser-like, she'll come and see you. She don' know what a Sunday-School's like. She thinks it's some sort of a trap."

"I ain't afraid!" spoke out black eyes.

"I didn't say you was," said her mother. "I might ha' said you was cunnin' enough to keep your foot out of it."

"It is not a trap," said Matilda, boldly. "It is a pleasant place, where we sing, and learn nice things."

"My children don't want to learn none o' your nice things," said the woman. "I can teach 'em to home."

"But you don't!" said black eyes. "You don't never learn us nothing!"

There was not the slightest sweet desire of learning evidenced in this speech. It breathed nothing but defiance.

"Alexander, won't you come?" said Matilda, timidly, as her sister moved to the door. For Maria's courage gave out. But at that question the young urchin addressed set up a roar of hoarse laughter, throwing himself down and rolling over on the floor. His mother shoved him out of her way with a push that was very like a kick, and his sister, seizing a wringing wet piece of clothes from the wash-tub, dropped it spitefully on his head. There was promise of a fight; and Matilda and Maria hurried out. They hastened their steps through the garden, and even out in the high road they ran a little to get away from Mrs. Dow's neighbourhood.

"Well!" said Maria, "what do you think now, Tilly? I hope you have got enough for once of this kind of thing. I promise you I have."

"Hush!" said Matilda. "Some one is calling."

They stopped and turned. A shout was certainly sent after them from the gate they had quitted—"Girls, hollo!—Sunday-School girls, hollo!"

"Do you hear?" said Matilda.

"Sunday-School girls!—come back!"

"What can they want?" said Maria.

"We must go see," said Matilda.

So they went towards the gate again. By the gate they could soon see the shock head of Alexander; he had got rid of the wash-tub and his mother and his sister—all three; and he was waiting there to speak to them. The girls hurried up again till they confronted his grinning face on the other side of the gate.

"What do you want?" said Maria. "What do you call us back for?"

"I didn't call you," said the boy.

"Yes, you did; you called us back; and we have come back all this way. What do you want to say?"

Alexander's face was dull, even in his triumph. No sparkle or gleam of mischief prepared the girls for his next speech.

"I say—ain't you green!"

But another shout of rude laughter followed it; and another roll and tumble, though these last were on the snow. Maria and her sister turned and walked away till out of hearing.

"I never heard of such horrible people!" said Maria; "never! And this is what you get, Matilda, by your dreadful going after Sunday-scholars and such things. I do hope you have got enough of it."

But Matilda only drew deep sighs, one after another, at intervals, and made no reply.

"Don't you see what a goose you are?" persisted Maria. "Don't you see?"

"No," said Matilda. "I don't see that."

"Well, you might. Just look at what a time we have had, only because you fancied there were two children at that house."

"Well, there are two children."

"Such children!" said Maria,

"I wish Mr. Richmond would go to see them," said Matilda.

"It would be no use for Mr. Richmond or anybody to go and see them," said Maria. "They are too wicked."

"But you cannot tell beforehand," said Matilda.

"And so I say, Tilly, the only way is to keep out of such places. I hope you'll be content now."

Matilda was hardly content; for the sighs kept coming every now and then. So they went down the hill again, and over the bridge, past the glen and the burnt mill, and began to go up on the other side. Now across the way, at the top of the bank that overhung the dell, there stood a house of more than common size and elegance, in the midst of grounds that seemed to be carefully planted. A fine brick wall enclosed these grounds on the roadside, and at the top of the hill an iron gate gave entrance to them.

"O Tilly," exclaimed Maria, "the Lardners' gate is open. Look! Suppose we go in."

"I should not like to go in," said the little one.

"Why not? There's nobody at home; they haven't come yet; and it's such a good chance. You know, Clarissa says that people have leave to go into people's great places and see them, in England, where she has been."

"But this is not a great place, and we have not leave," urged Matilda.

"Oh well, I'm going in. Come! we'll just go in for a minute. It's no harm. Come just for a minute."

Matilda, however, stopped at the gate, and stood there waiting for her sister; while Maria stepped in cautiously and made her way as far as the front of the house. Here she turned and beckoned to Matilda to join her; but the little one stood fast.

"What does she want of you?" a voice asked at her elbow. Matilda started. Two ladies were there.

"She beckoned for me to go in where she is," said Matilda.

"Well, why don't you go in?"

The voice was kindly; the face of the lady was bending towards her graciously; but who it was Matilda did not know.

"We have no leave to go in," she said. "I do not like to be there."

"I dare say the people would let you come in, if they knew you wished it."

"They do not know," said Matilda.

"What a charming child!" said the lady apart to her companion. "My dear," she went on to Matilda, "will you come in on my invitation? This is my house, and you are welcome. I shall be as glad to see you as you to see the place. Come!"

And she took Matilda's hand and led her in.

Just at the crown of the bank the house stood, and from here the view was very lovely, even now in winter. Over the wide river, which lay full in view with its ice covering, to the opposite shores and the magnificent range of mountains, which, from Matilda's window at home, she could just see in a little bit. The full range lay here before the eye, white with snow, coloured and brightened by the sinking sun, which threw wonderful lights across them, and revealed beautiful depths and shadows. Still, cold, high, far-off; their calm majesty held Matilda's eye.

"Are you looking at the mountains?" said the lady. "Yes, now come in and you shall look at my flowers. Your sister may come too," she added, nodding kindly to Maria; but she kept Matilda's hand, and so led her first upon the piazza, which was a single step above the ground, then into the hall. An octagon hall, paved with marble, and with large white statues holding post around its walls, and a vase of flowers on the balustrade at the foot of the staircase. But those were not the flowers the lady had meant; she passed on to one of the inner rooms, and from that to another, and finally into a pretty greenhouse, with glass windows looking out to the mountains and the river, filled on this side of the windows with tropical bloom. While the girls gazed in wonder, the lady stepped back into the room they had left, and threw off her wrappings. When she came again to the girls in the greenhouse, they hardly knew which to look at, her or the flowers; her dress and whole appearance were so unlike anything they had ever seen.

"Which do you like best?" she said. "The roses, you know, of course; these are camellias,—and these—and these red ones too; all camellias. These are myrtle; these are heath; these are geraniums—all those are geraniums. This is Eupatorium—those, yes, those are azaleas, and those,—and all those. Yes, all azaleas. You like them? This is bigonia. What do you like best?"

It was a long while before Matilda could divide and define her admiration enough to tell what she liked best. Carnations and heath were found at last to have her best favour. The lady cut a bouquet for her with plenty of carnations and heath, but a variety of other beauty too; then led the girls into the other room and offered them some rich cake and a glass of what Matilda supposed to be wine. She took the cake and refused the cordial.

"It is very sweet," said the lady. "You will not dislike it; and it will warm you, this cold afternoon."

"I may not drink wine, ma'am, thank you," Matilda answered.

"It is not wine. Does it make you sick, my dear? Are you afraid to try it? Your sister is not afraid. I think it will do you good."

Being thus reassured, Matilda put the glass to her lips, but immediately set it down again.

"You do not like it?" said the lady.

"I like it; but—it is strong?" said Matilda, inquiringly.

"Why, yes, it would not be good for anything if it were not strong. Never mind that—if you like it. The glass does not hold but a thimbleful, and a thimbleful will not hurt you. Why, why not, my dear?"

Matilda looked up, and coloured and hesitated.

"I have promised not," she said.

"So solemnly?" said the lady, laughing. "Is it your mother you have promised?"

"No, ma'am."

"Not your mother? You have a mother?"

"Oh yes, ma'am."

"Would she have any objection?"

"No, ma'am—I believe not."

"Then whom have you made your promise to? Is it a religious scruple that some one has taught you?"

"I have promised to do all I could for helping temperance work," Matilda said at last.

She was answered with a little ringing laugh, not unkindly but amused; and then her friend said gravely—

"Your taking a glass of cordial in this house would not affect anything or anybody, little one. It would do me no harm. I drink a glass of wine every day with my dinner. I shall go on doing it just the same. It will not make a bit of difference to me, whether you take your cordial or not."

But Matilda looked at the lady, and did not look at her glass.

"Do you think it will?" said the lady, laughing.

"No, ma'am."

"Then your promise to help temperance work does not touch the cordial."

"No ma'am, but——"

"But?—what 'but'?"

"It touches me."

"Does it?" said the lady. "That is odd. You think a promise is a promise. Here is your sister taking her cordial; she has not made the same promise, I suppose?"

Maria and Matilda glanced at each other.

"She has?" cried the lady. "Yet you see she does not think as you do about it."

The sisters did not look into each other's eyes again. Their friend watched them both.

"I should like to know whom you have made such a promise to," she said coaxingly to Matilda. "Somebody that you love well enough to make you keep it. Won't you tell me? It is not your mother, you said. To whom did you make that promise, dear?"

Matilda hesitated and looked up into the lady's face again.

"I promised—the Lord Jesus," she said.

"Good patience! she's religious!" the lady exclaimed, with a change coming over her face; Matilda could not tell what it was, only it did not look like displeasure. But she was graver than before, and she pressed the cordial no more; and at parting she told Matilda she must certainly come and see her again, and she should always have a bunch of flowers to pay her. So the girls went home, saying nothing at all to each other by the way.



CHAPTER VII.

It was tea-time at home by the time they got there. All during the meal, Maria held forth upon the adventures of the afternoon, especially the last.

"Mamma, those people are somebody," she concluded.

"I hope I am somebody," said Mrs. Englefield.

"Oh but you know what I mean, mamma."

"I am not clear that I do."

"And I, Maria,—am I not somebody?" her aunt asked.

"Well, we're all somebody, of course, in one sense. Of course we're not nobody."

"I am not so sure what you think about it," said Mrs. Candy. "I think that in your language, who isn't somebody is nobody."

"Oh, well, we're somebody," said Maria. "But if you could see the splendid bunch of jewels that hung at Mrs. Laval's breast, you would know I say the truth."

"Now we are getting at Maria's meaning," observed Clarissa.

"I have no bunch of jewels hanging at my breast," said Mrs. Englefield; "if that is what she means by 'somebody.'"

"How large a bunch was it, Maria?" her aunt asked.

"And is it certain that Maria's eyes could tell the true from the false, in such a matter as a bunch of jewellery?" suggested Clarissa. "They have not had a great deal of experience."

Maria fired up. "I just wish you could see them for yourself!" she said. "False jewels, indeed! They sparkle like flashes of lightning. All glittering and flashing, red and white. I never saw anything so beautiful in all my life. And if you saw the rest of the dress, you would know that they couldn't be false jewels."

"What sort of a face had she?"

"I don't know,—handsome."

"The bunch of jewels dazzled Maria's eyes," said Clarissa, sipping her tea.

"No, not handsome, Maria," Matilda said.

"Well, not handsome exactly, but pleasant. She had curls, and lightish hair; but her dress was so handsome, it made her look handsome. She took a terrible fancy to Matilda."

"Matilda is the youngest," said her mother.

"It was thanks to Matilda we got into the house at all; and Matilda had the flowers. Nobody spoke of giving me any flowers."

"Well, you know you do not care for them," interposed Matilda.

"Mamma, those people are somebody—I can tell you!"

"You speak as if there were nobody else in Shadywalk, Maria, that is anybody."

"Well, Aunt Candy, I don't know any people like these."

"Maria, you talk nonsense," said her mother.

"Mamma, it is just what Aunt Erminia would say herself, if she knew the people."

"What makes anybody 'somebody,' I should like to know? and what do you mean by it? Am I nobody, because I cannot wear red and white jewels at my throat?"

"It wasn't at her throat at all, mamma; it was just here—on her waist."

"A bouquet de corsage," said Clarissa. "The waist, as you call it, is at the belt."

"Well, I am not a mantua-maker," said Maria.

"No more than we are somebody," said Mrs. Candy.

"Well, you know what I mean," said Maria; "and you all think exactly the same. There is nobody else in Shadywalk that dresses so, or that has such flowers, or that has such a house."

"Who are they, these people that she talks of?" Mrs. Candy asked.

"They have lately bought the place. I know nothing about them. They were here for a little while in the summer; but only to turn everything upside down in the house and grounds, and make changes. I cannot imagine what has brought them here, to the country, in the depth of winter. They had nothing to do with anybody in Shadywalk, that I know of. Perhaps they will, now they have got in order. I believe they have lived out of America a good deal."

"Is that what you mean by 'somebody,' Maria?" her aunt asked. "Perhaps I am 'somebody,' according to that."

Maria's thoughts would not bear to be spoken, it seemed, for she did not speak them; and it must be a strong reason that kept Maria's opinions to herself. However, the family found something else to talk about, and Mrs. Laval was not mentioned again till Maria and Matilda went up to bed. Then Matilda had something to say.

"Maria," she began with judicial gravity, "what was that Mrs. Laval gave us to drink?"

"I don't know," said Maria; "but it was the best thing I ever tasted in all my life. It was some sort of wine, I guess; it was strong enough. But it was sweet; oh, it was nice!"

"And you drank it!"

"I guess I did! I only wished there was more of it."

"But, Maria!——"

"Well, what, 'Maria'?"

"You promised, Maria, that you would do all you could for temperance work."

"What then? I could not do anything for temperance there, child. As Mrs. Laval said."

"You needn't have drunk the wine."

"Why shouldn't I? Mrs. Laval gave it to me; I couldn't be rude."

"But that is not keeping your promise."

"I made no promise about it. I could do nothing in the world for temperance there, Tilly. What would Mrs. Laval care for anything I should say?"

"But, Maria!" said her little sister, looking puzzled and troubled at once—"you cannot drink wine in one place, and try to hinder people from drinking it in another place."

"Why can't I? It all depends on the place, Tilly, and the people."

"And the wine, I suppose," said Matilda, severely.

"Yes!" said Maria, boldly, "I dare say, if all wine was like that, Mr. Richmond would have no objection to it."

"I don't see, Maria," said her sister, "what you made those promises for the other night. I think you ought not to have got up at all; it was the same as speaking; and if you do not mean to keep promises, you should not make them."

"And what have you got to do with it?" said Maria in her turn. "You did not stand up with the rest of us; you have no business to lecture other people that are better than yourself. I am going to keep all the promises I ever made; but I did not engage to go poking into Mrs. Dow's wash kitchen, nor to be rude to Mrs. Laval; and I don't mean to do the one or the other, I give you notice."

Matilda drew another of the long breaths that had come so many times that afternoon, and presently remarked that she was glad the next meeting of the Band would come in a few days.

Maria sharply inquired, "Why?"

"Because," said Matilda, "I hope Mr. Richmond will talk to us. I don't understand about things."

"Of course you don't!" said Maria; "and if I were you I would not be so wise, till I did 'understand.'"

Matilda got into bed, and Maria sat down to finish putting the braid on her dress.

"Tilly, what are you going to get with your twenty-five dollars?"

"I don't know yet."

"I don't know whether I shall get a watch, or a dress, like Anne; or something else. What would you?"

"I don't know."

"What are you going to get with your money, Matilda?"

"I can't tell, Maria. I know what I am going to do with part; but I don't know what I am going to do with the other part."

Maria could get no more from her.

Nothing new happened in the family before the evening came for what Maria called the "Band meeting." Matilda went about between home and the school extremely quiet and demure, and reserved rather more than ordinary; but reserve was Matilda's way. Only Maria knew, and it irritated her, that her little sister was careful to lock herself up alone with her Bible, or rather with somebody else's Bible, for Matilda had none of her own, for a good long time every morning and evening. Maria thought sometimes she knew of her doing the same thing at the noon recess. She said nothing, but she watched. And her watching made her certain of it. Matilda unlocked her door and came out always with a face of quiet seriousness and a spirit in armour. Maria could not provoke her (and she tried); nor could any other temptations or difficulties, that she could see, shake a certain steady gentleness with which Matilda went through them. Matilda was never a passionate child, but she had been pleasure-loving and wayward. That was changing now; and Matilda was giving earnest care to her school-work.

The desired evening for the "Band meeting" came, and the young people all went duly to the lecture-room; though Maria reminded her sisters that they did not belong there. Letitia and Anne chose to go in spite of that fact. The room, though not full, was filled towards the upper end; so the party were divided, and it happened that Matilda placed herself apart from her sisters, in the front, at the end of a seat near to Mr. Richmond. He was there already, standing by the little desk.

After the prayer and singing, Mr. Richmond declared that they were come together for a talk; and he meant to make it a talk. He should ask questions when he chose, and everybody else might exercise the same liberty.

"We are going to try to understand things," he said; "and by that somewhat vague expression I mean things connected with our covenant that we have made, and the work we have undertaken. Our covenant begins with the words, 'We are the servants of Christ.' Let us know exactly what we mean. What is it to be a servant of Christ? What is a servant, in the first place?"

There was hesitation; then an answer from somewhere,—"He is somebody who does what he is told."

"That would be a good servant," said Mr. Richmond, smiling; "but it will do. He is one who acts under the will of another, doing the work of another. A servant of Christ—what does he do?—and how does he do it?"

There was no answer this time.

"Let us look," said Mr. Richmond. "In the first verse of the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, Paul calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ; and in the ninth verse he says that he serves 'with his spirit.' Here is a mark. The service of Christ, you see, is in the first instance, not outward but inward. Not hand work, nor lip work, nor money giving; but service in the spirit. What is that?

"It is having your will the same with God's will.

"So now look and see. We all pledged ourselves the other night to do a great many sorts of outward service; good in themselves, and right and needful to do. But the first question is, Are we ourselves the servants of Christ? Do we in heart love and obey and agree to His will? If we are not doing that, or trying to do it, our other service is no service at all. It is a lie, and no service at all. Or it is service of ourselves."

Mr. Richmond paused a little.

"I have no reason to think that any of you did not mean true service, when the pledge was given the other night. So now let us see how this true service shows itself.

"Jesus said, you remember, 'If any man serve me, let him follow me.' All we have to ask is, How did the Lord himself walk, that we should follow Him? I recommend you to study the story of His life very carefully and very constantly, and be continually getting new lessons from it. But now let us look just at one or two points.

"Jesus said, 'As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.' Has he commanded us to be anything like that?"

One of the boys answered, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

"How can our light shine?"

"Doing good," another boy answered.

"Being good," said one of the girls.

"Very well; but what is there in doing and being good which has any resemblance to light? What does light do?"

"It shows things," a boy said.

"There's no darkness where the light comes," said a little girl.

"Quite true; but how does our doing good and being good, 'show things'? What does it show?"

After a little hesitation a voice replied, "It shows what is right."

"It shows what people ought to do," a boy said.

"It shows what is the will of God about us," said Mr. Richmond; "and the more exactly we are obedient to that will and conformed to it, the more brightly do we give light. And do you see? our light-giving depends on what we are. We give no light, except just so far as we are ourselves what God wills us to be. And then it shines out in all sorts of ways. I knew a little girl whose eyes were like two pure lamps, always; they were so loving and clear and true. I have known several people whose voices gave light as much as harmony; they were so sweet with the tones of a glad heart and a conscience at peace. I have seen faces that shone, almost like angel faces, with the love of God and the joy of heaven and the love of their fellow-men. Now this is the first thing the Lord calls us to be in His service—His light-bearers. The light comes from Him; we must get it from Him; and then we must shine! And of course our actions give light too, if they are obedient to the will of God. A boy who keeps the Sabbath holy is almost as good as a sermon to a boy who doesn't. One who refuses to touch the offered glass of wine, shows the light to another who drinks it. A loving answer shames a harsh spirit; and a child faithful to her duties at school is a beacon of truth to her fellows.

"There is one thing more; and then I will talk to you no longer this evening. Jesus said, 'The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.' His servants must follow Him. Now, how much are you willing to do,—how far are you willing to go,—to accomplish what He came, and lived, and died for? and how will you set about it?"

There was a long silence here; until Mr. Richmond urged that an answer should be given. Then at last somebody suggested—

"Bringing new scholars to school?"

"That is one thing to be done, certainly; and a very good thing. What else can we attempt? Remember,—it is to seek and to save the lost!"

"We might carry tracts," another suggested.

"You might; and if they are good tracts, and given with a kind word, and followed with a loving prayer, they will not be carried in vain. But to whom will you take them, Frank?"

"Might take them to the boys in the school," Frank thought.

"Where else?"

"Might drop 'era around the corner," Mrs. Rice said.

"Don't drop them anywhere, where it is possible to give them," Mr. Richmond replied. "Do not ever be, or seem, ashamed of your wares. Give lovingly to almost anybody, and the gift will not be refused, if you choose the time and place wisely. Take people when they are alone, as much as you can. But the lost, remember. Who are the lost?"

Silence; then a voice spoke—

"People who don't come to church."

"It is a bad sign when people do not come to church," said Mr. Richmond. "Still we may not make that an absolute test. Some people are sick and unable to come; some are deaf and unable to hear if they did come; some are so poor they have not decent clothes. Some live where there are no churches. Who are the lost?"

"People who are not going to heaven," one little girl answered.

"People who are not good," another said.

"People who swear," said a boy.

"Those people who do not love Jesus Christ," was the answer of the fourth.

"That sums it all up," said Mr. Richmond. "Those who do not know the Lord Jesus. They are out of the way to heaven; they have never trusted in His blood for forgiveness; they are not good, for they have not got His help to make them good; and if they do not swear and do other dreadful things, it is only because the temptation is wanting. They are the lost. Now, does not every one of you know some friend or acquaintance who is a lost one? some brother or sister perhaps; or mother or father, or cousin or neighbour, who does not love Jesus the Lord? Those are the very first people for us to seek. Then, outside of those nearest ones, there is a whole world lost. Let us go after all, but especially those who have few to look after them."

"It is harder to speak to those you know, than to those you don't know," Mrs. Trembleton said.

"No matter. Jesus said, 'He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, cannot be my disciple.' Let us go to the hardest cases."

"Are not tracts best to use with them?" Mrs. Swan asked.

"Use tracts or not, according to circumstances. Your own voice is often better than a tract, if it has the right ring to it. When

''Tis joy, not duty, To speak His beauty.'

Speak that as often and wherever you can. And 'whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Now I have done asking questions, and you may ask me whatever you like. It is your turn."

Mr. Richmond sat down.

But the silence was unbroken.

"I am here to answer questions, remember. Has no one anything to ask? Has no one found any difficulty to be met, and he does not know just how to meet it? Has no one found something to be done, and he does not know just who is to do it? Speak, and tell everything. Now is the time."

Silence again, and then a little boy said—

"I have found a feller that would like, I guess, to come to Sunday-School; but his toes is out o' his shoes."

"Cannot he get another pair?" Mr. Richmond asked gravely.

"I guess not, sir."

"Then it is a case for the 'Aid and Comfort' committee," said Mr. Richmond. "Who is the head of your department? Who is chief of those who are looking up new scholars?"

"John Depeyster."

"Very well. Tell John Depeyster all about your little boy and his toes, and John will go to the head of the relief committee—that is, Miss Forshew—and she will see about it. Very well, Everett; you have made a good beginning. Who is next?"

"I would like to know," said Miss Forshew, in a small voice, "where the relief committee are to get supplies from? If new shoes are to be bought, there must be funds."

"That is the very thing the relief committee undertook, I thought," said Mr. Richmond. "Must there be some scheme to relieve them first? Your business abilities can manage that, Miss Forshew, or I am mistaken in them. But, dear friends, we are not going to serve Christ with that which costs us nothing—are we?"

"Mr. Richmond," said Ailie Swan, "may temperance people drink cider?"

The laughter was universal now.

"Because," said Ailie, unabashed, "I was talking to a boy about drinking it; and he said cider was nothing."

"I have seen some cider which was more than negative in its effects," said Mr. Richmond. "I think you were right Ailie. Cider is only the juice of apples, to be sure; but it gets so unlike itself once in a while, that it is quite safe to have nothing to do with it."

"Mr. Richmond," said another girl, "what are you to do if people are rude?"

"The Bible says, 'A soft answer turneth away wrath,' Mary."

"But suppose they will not listen to you?"

"Be patient. People did not always listen to the Master, you remember."

"But would you try again?"

"If I had the least chance. We must not be afraid of 'taking the wind on our face,' as an old writer says. I would try again; and I would pray more for them. Did you try that, Mary?"

"No, sir."

"Don't ever hope to do anything without prayer. Indeed, we must look to God to do all. We are nothing. If anything is to be accomplished for the service of Christ by our hands, it must be by God's grace working through us and with us; no other way. The power is His, always. So whatever you do, pray, and hope in God, not in yourself."

"Mr. Richmond," said Frances Barth, "I do not understand about 'carrying the message.' What does it mean?"

"You know what the message is? We are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature."

"But how can we do it?—people who are not ministers?"

"It is not necessary to get up into a pulpit to preach the gospel."

"No, sir; but—any way, how is one to 'carry the message'?"

"First, I would say, be sure that you have a message to carry."

"I thought you just said, Mr. Richmond, that the gospel is the message?" said Mrs. Trembleton.

"It is the material of the message; but you know it must be very differently presented to different people."

"I know; but how can you tell?"

"As I said, be sure that you have a message to carry. Let your heart be full of some thought, or some truth, which you long to tell to another person, or long that another person should know. Then ask the Lord to give you the right word for that person; and ask Him to let His power go along with it."

"Then one's own heart must be full first," said another lady, Mrs. Barth, thoughtfully.

"It should be. And it may be."

"One has so little time to give to these things," said Mrs. Trembleton.

"Shall we serve the Lord with that which costs us nothing?" again said Mr. Richmond. But he did not prolong the conversation after that. He gave out a hymn and dismissed the assembly.

Matilda being quite in the front, was some distance behind her sisters in coming out. As she passed slowly down the aisle, she came near two of her little acquaintances in one of the seats, who were busily talking.

"It would be so nice!" she heard the one say to the other.

"Where shall we do it?"

"There's no place at our house."

"No more there isn't at mine. There are so many people about all over. Where can we go?"

"I'll tell you. Mr. Ulshoeffer has this place nice and warm long before Sunday-School time, on Sundays; let us come here. We could come awhile before the time, you know; and it would be so nice. Nobody would interrupt us. Oh, there's Matilda Englefield—Matilda, won't you come too? Oh, I forgot; you are not one of the Band."

"Yes, I am," said Matilda.

"Why, you didn't rise the other night when we all rose. I looked over at you to see."

"I gave Mr. Richmond my name afterwards."

"Oh, did you! oh, that's good. Now, Matilda, wouldn't you like to come with Mary and me?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Why, Mary said she would like to begin and read the Life of Jesus, you know, to see how He did live; if we are to follow Him, you know; and I said I would like it too; and we're going to do it together. And we're coming here Sundays, before time for Sunday-School, to have a good quiet place where nobody can trouble us. Don't you want to come too, Matilda?"

"Yes. But other people will find it out and come too."

"We'll lock the door; till it is time for the people to come to Sunday-School, you know."

"But I don't believe we can get in, Ailie," said Mary Edwards. "I guess Mr. Ulshoeffer keeps the door locked himself."

"I know he does; but I know Regina Ulshoeffer, and she'll get leave for us and get the key. I know she will. Then we'll come, won't we? Good-night! Bring your Testament, Tilly!"

The little group scattered at the lecture-room door, and Matilda ran after her party. They were far ahead; and when she caught up with them they were deep in eager talk, which was almost altercation. Matilda fell behind and kept out of it and out of hearing of it, till they got home.

"Well!" said Mrs. Candy, as they entered the parlour, "what now? You do not look harmonious, considering. What have you had to-night?"

"An impossible sort of enthusiasm, mamma," said Clarissa, as she drew off her handsome furs.

"Impossible enthusiasm!" repeated Mrs. Candy.

"What has Mr. Richmond been talking about?" asked Mrs. Englefield.

"Why, mamma," said Letitia, "we are all to spend our lives in feeding sick people, and clothing lazy people, and running after the society of wicked people, as far as I can make out; and our money of course goes on the same plan. I advise you to look after Maria and Matilda, for they are just wise enough to think it's all right; and they will be carrying it into practice before you know where you are."

"It is not so at all!" began Maria, indignantly. "It is nothing like that, mamma. You know Mr. Richmond better."

"I think I know you better, too. Look where your study books were thrown down to-day when you came from school. Take them away, before you do anything else or say anything more."

Maria obeyed with a gloomy face.

"Do you approve of Mr. Richmond, Aunt Marianne?" Clarissa asked. "If so, I will say no more; but I was astonished to-night. I thought he was a man of sense."

"He is a man of sense," said Mrs. Englefield; "but I always thought he carried his notions rather far."

"Why, aunt, he would make missionaries and colporteurs and sisters of charity of us all. Sisters of charity are a magnificent institution, of course; but what would become of the world if we were all sisters of charity? And the idea! that everybody is to spend his whole time and all his means in looking up vagrants and nursing fever cases! I never heard anything like it in my life. That, and doing the work of travelling Methodists!"

"I wonder what the ministry is good for," said Mrs. Candy, "if everybody is to do the same work."

"I do not understand it," said Mrs. Englefield. "I was not brought up to these extreme theories myself; and I do not intend that my children shall be."

"But, mamma," said Maria, re-entering, "Mr. Richmond does not go into extreme theories."

"Did you eat an apple after dinner?" said her mother.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You ate it up here, instead of in the dining-room?"

"Why, mamma, you know we often——"

"Answer me. You ate it up here?"

"Yes."

"What did you do with the core and the peel?"

"Mamma, I—you know I had no knife——"

"What did you do with it?"

No answer, except that Maria's cheeks grew bright.

"You know what you did with it, I suppose. Now bring it to me, Maria."

Colouring angrily as well as confusedly, Maria went to the mantelpiece where stood two little china vases, and took down one of them.

"Carry it to your Aunt Candy," said her mother. "Look at it, Erminia. Now bring it here. Take this vase away, and empty it, and wash it, and put it in its place again; and never use it to put apple peels in, as long as you live."

Maria burst into tears and went away with the vase.

"Just a little careless," said her aunt.

"Heedless—always was," said her mother. "Now Matilda is not so; and Anne and Letitia were neither of them so. It is a mystery to me, what makes one child so different from another child?"

"Matilda is a little piece of thoughtfulness," said her aunt, drawing the child to her side and kissing her. "Don't you think a little too much, Tilly?"

Matilda wondered whether her aunt thought quite enough.

"Now, Maria," Mrs. Englefield went on as her other daughter came in, "are you purposing to enter into all Mr. Richmond's plans that Clarissa has been talking about?"

"Yes, ma'am, of course," Maria said.

"Well, I want you to take notice, that I expect in the first place that all your home and school duties shall be perfectly performed. Religion, if it is good for anything, makes people do their duties. Your lessons must be perfect; your drawers kept in order; your clothes mended; you must be punctual at school and orderly at home; do you hear? And if all this is not done, I shall take all your pretended religion for nothing but a sham, and shall pay no respect to it at all. Now go to bed and act religion for a month before I hear you talk another word about it."

Maria went silently up-stairs, accompanied by her little sister; but once in their room, she broke out—

"Mamma is real cross to-night! It is just Clarissa's doing."

"I'll tell you what it is, Maria," her sister said; "she is not cross; she is worried. I know she is worried."

"About Mr. Richmond?" said Maria.

"I don't know about what. No, I guess she was worried before we came back."

"She was cross anyhow!" said Maria. "How can one do everything perfectly?"

"But that is just what Mr. Richmond said," Matilda urged gently.

"What?"

"That we should be light-bearers, you know. That is the way to be a light-bearer; to do everything perfectly."

"Well, you may, if you can," said Maria. "I can't."



CHAPTER VIII.

"Tilly, that money burns my pocket," Maria said the next morning.

"Then you had better put it somewhere else."

"I suppose you think that is smart," said Maria, "but it isn't; for that is just what I mean to do. I mean to spend it, somehow."

"What for?"

"That's just what I don't know. There are so many things I want; and I do not know what I want most. I have a good mind to buy a writing-desk, for one thing."

"Why, you have got one already."

"I mean a handsome one—a real beauty, large, you know, and with everything in it. That lock of mine isn't good. Anybody could open it."

"But there is nobody to do that," said Matilda. "Nobody comes here but you and me."

"That don't make any difference!" said Maria, impatiently. "Don't be so stupid. I would like to have a nice thing, anyhow. Then sometimes I think I would rather have a gold chain—like Clarissa's."

"You could not get that for twenty-five dollars," said Matilda.

"How do you know?"

"Hers cost three or four times as much as that."

"Did it?—Well, then I guess I will have the desk, or a whole lot of handsome summer dresses. I guess I will have that."

"Maria," said her little sister, facing round upon her, "how much are you going to give to the Missionary Fund?"

"The Missionary Fund?" said Maria.

"Yes. You promised to help that, you know."

"Not with my twenty-five dollars!" said Maria, energetically. "I think you are crazy, Matilda."

"Why?"

"Because! To ask me such a question as that. Aunt Candy's present!"

"Didn't you promise?"

"I did not promise to give my money any more than I usually give. I put a penny in every Sunday."

"Then I don't see how you are going to help the Fund," said Matilda. "I don't see why you promised, either."

"I promised, because I wanted to join the Band; and I am going to do everything I ought to do. I think I am just as good as you, Matilda."

Matilda let the matter drop.

It did not appear what she was going to do with her money. She always said she had not decided. Only, one day soon after the last meeting recorded, Matilda was seen in one of the small bookstores of Shadywalk. There was not reading enough in the village to support a bookstore proper; so the books crept into one corner of the apothecaries' shops, with supplies of stationery to form a connecting link between them and the toilet articles on the opposite counter. To one of these modest retreats of literature, Matilda came this day and requested to look at Bibles. She chose one and paid for it; but she took a long time to make her choice; was excessively particular about the goodness of the binding and the clearness of the type; detecting an incipient loose leaf in one that was given her to examine; and finally going away perfectly satisfied. She said nothing about it at home; but of course Maria saw the new purchase immediately.

"So you have been to get a Bible!" she said. "Did you get it with part of your twenty-five dollars?"

"Yes. I had no other money, Maria, to get it with."

"I think you are very foolish. What do you want a Bible for?"

"I had none."

"You could always read mine."

"Not always. And Maria, you know, if we are to follow Jesus, we want to know very well, indeed, how He went and what He did and what He wants us to do; and we cannot know all that without a great deal of study."

"I have studying enough to do already, for my part," said Maria.

"But you must study this."

"I haven't a minute of time, Matilda—not a minute."

"Then how will you know what to do?"

"Just as well as you will, perhaps. I've got my map of South America to do all over, from the beginning."

"And all the rest of the class?"

"Yes."

"Then you are no worse off than the others. And Ailie Swan reads her Bible, I know."

"I think I am just as good as Ailie Swan," said Maria, with a toss of her head.

"But, Maria," said Maria's little sister, leaning her elbows on the table and looking earnestly up at her.

"Well, what?"

"Is that the right way to talk?"

"Why not?"

"I don't see what Ailie has to do with your being good."

"Nor I, I am sure," said Maria. "It was you brought her up."

"Because, if she has time, I thought you might have time."

"Well, I haven't time," said Maria. "It is as much as I can do, to study my lesson for Sunday-School."

"Then, Maria, how can you know how to be good?"

"It is no part of goodness to go preaching to other people, I would have you know," said Maria.

Matilda turned over the leaves of her new Bible lovingly, and said no more. But her sister failing her, she was all the more driven to seek the little meetings in the corner of the Sunday-School-room; and they grew to be more and more pleasant. At home nothing seemed to be right. Mrs. Englefield was not like herself. Anne and Letitia were gloomy and silent. The air was heavy. Even Clarissa's beautiful eyes, when they were slowly lifted up to look at somebody, according to her custom, seemed cold and distant as they were not at first. Clarissa visited several sick people and carried them nourishing things; but she looked calm disapproval when Maria proclaimed that Tilly had been all up Lilac Lane to look for a stray Sunday-School scholar. Mrs. Englefield laughed and did not interfere.

"I would never let a child of mine go there alone," said Mrs. Candy.

"There is no danger in Shadywalk," said Mrs. Englefield.

"You will be sorry for it, sister."

"Well; I am sorry for most things, sooner or later," said Mrs. Englefield.

So weeks went by; until it came to be the end of winter, and something of spring was already stealing into the sunlight and softening the air; that wonderful nameless "something," which is nothing but a far-off kiss from Spring's fingers. One Sunday Mrs. Englefield had gone to bed with a headache; and hastening away from the dinner-table, Matilda went off to her appointment. Mr. Ulshoeffer had been propitious; he let the little girls have the key on the inside of the schoolroom door; and an hour before it was time for the classes of the school to be gathering, the three friends met at the gate and went in. They always sat in a far-off corner of one of the transepts, to be as cozy as possible. They were all punctual to-day, Ailie having the key of the door.

"Girls, don't you get confused sometimes, with the things you hear people say?" she asked, as she unlocked the door. "I do; and then sometimes I get real worried."

"So do I get worried!" Mary Edwards assented. "And I don't know what to say—that's the worst of it."

"Now only to-day," Ailie went on, as they walked up the matted aisle with a delicious sense of being free and alone and confidential, "I heard some one say it was no use for children to be Christians; he said they didn't know their own minds, and don't know what they want, and by and by it will all be smoke. And when I hear such things, it affects me differently. Sometimes I get mad; and then sometimes it takes the strength all out of me."

"But if we have the right sort of strength," said Matilda, "people can't take it from us, Ailie."

"Well, mine seems to go," said Ailie. "And then I feel bad."

"We know what we want," said Mary, "if we are children."

"We know our own minds," said Matilda. "We know we do. It is no matter what people say."

"I wish they wouldn't say it," said Ailie. "Or I wish I needn't hear it. But it is good to come here and read, isn't it? And I think our talk helps us; don't you?"

"It helps me," said Mary Edwards. "I've got nobody at home to talk to."

"Let us begin, girls, or we shall not have time," said Matilda. "It's the fourteenth chapter."

"Of Luke?" said Ailie. "Here it is. But I don't like Luke so well as Matthew; do you? Well, begin."

They began and read on, verse by verse, until fourteen verses were read. There they paused.

"What does this mean?" said Matilda, knitting her small brows.

"Isn't it right to ask our friends to tea or anything? Why, Jesus went to dine with this Pharisee," said Mary, looking up.

"Yes; but that is another thing," said Matilda. "You see, we must ask the people who have no friends."

"But why not our friends too?"

"Perhaps it would cost too much to ask everybody," said Ailie. "One would be giving parties all the time; and they cost, I can tell you."

"But some people are rich enough," said Mary.

"Those people don't make parties for the poor, though," said Ailie. "Catch them!"

"But then, can it mean that it is wrong to have our friends come and see us?" said Matilda.

"It cannot be wrong. Don't you remember, Martha and Mary used to have Jesus come to their house? and they used to make suppers for Him."

"But He was poor," said Matilda.

"That is different, too, from having a party, and making a great fuss," said Ailie.

"And that is done just to pay one's debts," said Matilda, "for I have heard mother say so. People ask her, and so she must ask people. And that is what it means, girls, I guess. See, 'lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee.' That isn't making a feast for people that you love."

"Then it is wicked to ask people just that they may ask you," said Mary Edwards.

"Instead of that, we must ask people who cannot ask us," said Matilda.

"But how queer we should be!" said Ailie Swan. "Just think; we should not be like anybody else. And what should we do if people asked us?"

"I don't care," said Matilda. "See, girls;—'thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.'"

"And is that what it means in the next verse?" said Mary Edwards. "But I don't understand that. 'Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.' Do they eat bread there? I thought they didn't."

"It is like what we read a little way back," said Matilda, flirting over one or two leaves, "yes, here in the 12th chapter—'Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.'"

"That means Jesus," said Mary Edwards. "He will make them to sit down to meat!—and will serve them. What does it mean, I wonder?"

"It means, that Jesus will give them good things," said Ailie.

"I guess they will be blessed, then, that eat when He feeds them," said the other little girl. "I would like to be there."

"There is a verse or two that my Bible turns to," said Matilda. "In the Revelation. 'And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.' Oh, don't you like to read in the Revelation? But we are all called; aren't we?"

"And here, in our chapter," said Mary, "it goes on to tell of the people who were called and wouldn't come. So I suppose everybody is called; and some won't come."

"Some don't get the invitation," said Matilda, looking up.

"A good many don't, I guess," said Ailie. "Who do you think gets it in Lilac Lane?"

"Nobody, hardly, I guess," said Mary Edwards; "there don't many people come to church out of Lilac Lane."

"But then, girls," said Matilda, "don't you think we ought to take it there? the invitation, I mean?"

"How can we? Why, there are lots of people in Lilac Lane that I would be afraid to speak to."

"I wouldn't be afraid," said Matilda. "They wouldn't do us any harm."

"But what would you say to them, Tilly?"

"I would just ask them to come, Ailie. I would take the message to them. Just think, Ailie, of that time, of that supper—when Jesus will give good things with His own hand;—and how many people would come if they knew. I would tell everybody. Don't you think we ought to?"

"I don't like to speak to people much," said Ailie. "They would think I was setting myself up."

"It is only carrying the message," said Matilda. "And that is what Jesus was doing all the time, you know; and He has told us to follow Him."

"Then must we be telling it all the time too?" asked Ailie. "We should do nothing else."

"Oh yes, we should. That would not hinder," said Matilda. "It doesn't take so very long to say a word. Here is another verse, girls; this is in the Revelation too; listen. This must be what those other verses mean: 'They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'"

As if a thrill from some chord of an angel's harp had reached them, the children were still for a moment.

"I don't believe the people are happy in Lilac Lane," said Matilda.

"Maybe they are," said Ailie. "But I guess they can't be. People that are not good can't be happy."

"And Jesus has given us the message to take to everybody," said Matilda; "and when we come up there to that supper, and He asks us if we took the message to the people in the lane, what shall we say? I know what I would like to say."

"But there are other people, besides in the lane," said Ailie.

"We must take it to them too," said Mary Edwards.

"We can't take it to everybody."

"No; only to everybody that we can," said Matilda. "Just think how glad some of those people will be, when they hear it. What should we do if Mr. Richmond had never told it to us?"

Ailie bit her lip. Whether by design or not, Mary Edwards turned to her Testament and read the next words that followed in course.

"And there went great multitudes with Him: and He turned, and said unto them, If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

And seeing Mr. Ulshoeffer coming to open the door, the little conclave broke up. The children and teachers came pouring in for the Sunday-School.

Going out after it was over, Matilda noticed a face she had not seen; a boy older than herself, but not very old, standing near the door, looking at the small crowd that trooped along the aisle. The thought came to Matilda that he was a new scholar, and if so, somebody ought to welcome him; but nobody did, that she could see. He stood alone, looking at the people as if they were strange to him; with a good, bright, wide-awake face, handsome and bold. Matilda did not want to take the welcoming upon herself, but she thought somebody should do it; and the next minute she had paused in front of the stranger.

"Is this the first time you have been here?" she asked, with a kind of shy grace. The boy's bright eyes came down to her with a look of surprise as he assented.

"I am very glad to see you in our Sunday-School," she went on. "I hope it was pleasant."

"It was pleasant enough," said the stranger. "There is a jolly fellow over there asked me to come—Ben Barth; are you his sister?"

"Oh no," said Matilda. "Ben has his own sisters. I am not one of them."

"I thought maybe he told you to speak to me."

"Nobody told me," said Matilda. By this time they had followed the crowd out at the door, and were taking their way down the street.

"What did you speak to me then, for?" said the boy, with a roguish look at her.

"I thought you were a stranger."

"And what if I was?"

"I think, if you are a stranger anywhere, it is pleasant to have somebody speak to you."

"You're a brick!" was the stranger's conclusion.

"Am I?" said Matilda. "Why am I?"

"You're a girl, I suppose, and don't understand things," said her companion. "Boys know what a brick is—when they see it."

"Why, so do I," said Matilda, "don't I?"

But the boy only laughed; and then asked Matilda where she lived, and if she had any brothers, and where she went to school.

"I go to the other school, you see," said he; "that's how I've never seen you before. I wish you went to my school; and I'd give you a ride on my sled."

"But you'll come to our Sunday-School, won't you?" Matilda asked.

"To be sure I will; but you see, I can't take you on my sled on Sunday. They'd have all the ministers out after me."

"Oh no!" said Matilda. "I was not thinking of the sled; but you are very kind."

"I should like it," said the boy. "Yes, I am coming to the school; though I guess I've got an old fogy of a teacher. But the minister's a brick; isn't he?"

"He isn't much like me," said Matilda, laughing. "And the sort of bricks that I know, one is very much like another."

The boy laughed too, and asked if she didn't want to know his name? Matilda glanced again at the frank face and nice dress, and said yes.

"My name's Norton Laval. What's yours?"

"Matilda Englefield. I am going this way."

"Yes, you go that way and I go this way, but we shall see each other again. Good-bye."

So at the corner they parted; and Matilda went home, thinking that in this instance at least the welcoming of strangers had paid well. For this was a pleasant new acquaintance, she was sure. She mounted the stairs with happy feet to her room; and there found Maria in a flood of tears. Maria had stayed at home from Sunday-School to-day.

"What is the matter, Maria?" her little sister inquired. "How's mamma?"

"I don't know! Oh, nothing will ever be well again. O Tilly, what will become of us!"

And here a storm of sobs and tears came on, in the midst of which Matilda's questions could get no attention. Matilda knew her sister, however, and waited.

"O Tilly!—it's so dreadful!"

"What?" said Matilda calmly.

"We haven't got anything to live upon. Anne and Letty have been telling me. We haven't. We are going to be as poor as—as poor as anybody. We have got nothing to buy anything with—nothing at all! Anne says so."

"Did mamma say so?"

"Mother's sick. No, Aunt Candy told the girls. It's true. Somebody or something that had mamma's money—to take care of—has gone off, or been ruined, or something; and we are ruined! There is nothing left at all for us to live upon. And that is what has been troubling mamma all these weeks; and now it is certain, and she knows all about it; and I guess it is that has made her sick. Oh, what shall we do?"

The turn of Matilda's head was inimitable and indescribable. It was not arrogance or affectation; it was perfectly natural to the child; but to a bystander it would have signified that she was aware Maria's views and statements were not to be relied upon and could not be made the basis of either opinion or action. She took off her things, and without another word made her way to the room of her elder sisters. They were both sitting there gloomily.

"How is mamma?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her since dinner."

It was with a little of the same half-graceful, half-competent gesture of the head that Matilda applied herself to Letitia.

"What is all this story, Letty, that Maria has been telling me?"

"How should I know? Maria tells a great many stories."

"I mean, about what has been troubling mamma."

"Maria had no business to tell you, and so trouble you with it."

"But is it true, Letty? Anne, is it true?"

"I suppose it is true—if you mean what she heard from me a little while ago. That is true."

"And mamma has lost all her money?"

"Every cent."

"When did you know it, Anne and Letty?"

"We have known it a day or two. It is true. It is all true, Tilly."

"What is mamma going to do, then?"

"Get well, I hope. That is the first thing. Aunt Candy says she will pay for her board and Clarissa's, and mamma and you can live on that. Letty and I must go get our living—somehow."

And here Anne broke down. Matilda wanted to ask about Maria's fate in the general falling to pieces of the family; but her throat felt so full, she was afraid she could not. So she did not try; she turned and went down-stairs to her mother.

Mrs. Englefield was dozing, flushed and uneasy; she hardly noticed who was with her; but asked for water, and then for Cologne water. Matilda brought the one and the other, and sat by the bedside wiping her mother's brow and cheeks with the Cologne. Nobody came to interrupt or relieve her for some time. The light of the afternoon began to fade, and the sunbeams came aslant from the western sky; and still the child sat there passing the handkerchief gently over her mother's face. And while she sat so, Matilda was thinking what possible ways there might be by which she could make money.

"Tilly, is that you?" said Mrs. Englefield, faintly, as the sunbeams were just quitting the room.

"Yes, mamma. Are you better?"

"Is there no one else here?"

"No, mamma. Aunt Candy is out; and I suppose the girls thought you were sleeping. Are you better, mamma? You have had a nice long nap."

"It's been horrid!" said Mrs. Englefield. "I have dreamed of every possible dreadful thing."

"But you feel better now?"

"My head aches—no—oh, my head! Tilly——"

"What, mamma?"

"I am going to be sick. I shan't be about again for a while, I know. I want you to do just what I tell you."

"Yes, mamma. What?"

"Anne and Letty are going away."

"Yes, mamma. I know."

"Do you know why, dear?"

The tone of tender, sorrowful sympathy in which this was said, overcame the child. As her mother's eyes with the question languidly sought her face, Matilda burst into tears and threw herself upon her neck.

"No, don't," said Mrs. Englefield, faintly,—"I can't bear it. Don't, Matilda! Rise up and listen to me."

Matilda did as she was told. She forced back her tears; stopped her sobs; dashed away the drops from the corners of her eyes; and sat up again to hear what her mother had to say to her.

"Give me some more water first. Anne and Letty are going away, Tilly; and I cannot be up and see to anything; and I can't hire a woman to do what's to be done. You tell Maria, from me, she must stay home from school and take care of the house. You will do what you can, Tilly—oh, my head!—you can put rooms in order and such things; and Maria must go down into the kitchen and get the breakfast——"

"Must Maria get the dinner too, mamma?"

"Yes, the dinner——"

"But can she, mamma?"

"She must; or else your aunt Candy will hire somebody to do it; and that will come out of what she pays me, and we shall not have enough left. She must, Tilly."

"But aunt Candy wouldn't mind, just while you are sick, mamma, would she?"

"Yes! I know. Just you do as I tell you; promise me that you will."

"I will, mamma."

"Promise me that Maria will."

"I guess she will, mamma. I'll try and make her. Shall I bring her here, and you tell her yourself?"

"No, indeed. Don't bring Maria here. She would make such a row she would kill me. Anne and Letty will see to things, till they go—oh, I can't talk any longer. Give me some more water."

She was presently dozing again; and Matilda, clasping her small hands, sat and thought over what was before her. It began to feel like a weight on her somewhere—on her shoulders, she thought, and lying on her heart too; and the longer she thought about it, the heavier and harder it pressed. The family to be broken up; her mother to be straitened for money—Matilda did not know very well what that meant, but it sounded disagreeable; her aunt suddenly presented in new and not pleasant colours; a general threatening cloud overshadowing all the future. Matilda began to get, what her strong little heart was not accustomed to, a feeling of real discouragement. What could she do? And then a word of the afternoon's lesson in the Sunday-School came freshly to mind. It had been quite new to Matilda, and had seemed to her very beautiful; but it took on quite another sort of beauty now,—"Cast thy burden upon the Lord; He shall sustain thee."

"Will He?" thought Matilda. "Can He? May I tell Him about all this? and will He help me to bear it, and help me to do all that work, and to make Maria do hers? But He will, for He has said so."

It was getting dusk in the room. Matilda knelt down by her chair, and poured out all her troubles into the Ear that would heed and could help her.

"Who's here?" said the voice of Mrs. Candy, coming in. "Who is that? Matilda? How did you come here, Tilly?"

"I have been taking care of my mother."

"Have you? How is she? Well, you run down-stairs; I'll take care of her now. It is better for you not to be here. Don't come in again, unless I give you leave. Now you may go."

"I wonder, must I mind her?" said Matilda to herself. "I do not see why. She is not mother; and if mother is sick, that does not give everybody else a right to say what I shall do. I think it is very queer of Aunt Candy to take that way with me."

And I am afraid Matilda's head was carried a little with the air which was, to be sure, natural to her, and not unpretty, and yet which spoke of a good deal of conscious competency. It is no more than justice to Matilda to say that she did not ever put the feeling into any ill-mannerly form. It hardly appeared at all, except in this turn of her head, which all her own family knew, laughed at, admired, and even loved. So she went down-stairs to the parlour.

"How is Aunt Marianne?" was the question from Clarissa. "Letty told me where you were. But, little one, it is not good for you to go into your mother's sick-room; you can do nothing, and you are better out. So mamma wishes you not to go in there till Aunt Marianne is better—you understand?"

"Clarissa too!" thought Matilda to herself. But she made no answer. She came by the fire to warm herself; for her mother's room had been cold.

"You shouldn't go so near the fire; you'll burn your dress," Clarissa remarked.

"No," said Matilda; and she said but that one word.

"You will take the colour out, if you do not set it on fire; and that is what I meant. That is your best dress, Tilly."

It was true; and, sorely against her will, Matilda stepped a little back.

"You were a great while at Sunday-School to-day," Clarissa went on.

"No," said Matilda; "not longer than usual."

"What do you learn there?"

"Why, cousin Issa, what do you teach at your Sunday-School?" said Matilda. For Clarissa had sheered off from Mr. Richmond's church, and gone into a neighbouring one which belonged to the denomination in which she had been brought up.

"That is not good manners to answer one question with another, little one."

"I thought one answer might serve for both," said Matilda.

"I am afraid it would not. For in my Sunday-School I teach the Catechism."

"Don't the Catechism tell about Jesus?"

"Some things,—of course."

"Our lessons tell all things about Him," said Matilda; "and that is what I learn."

"Do you learn about yourself?"

"What about myself?"

"How you ought to behave, and how you ought not to behave."

"Why, I think learning about Jesus teaches one that," said Matilda.

"I think there is nothing so good as coming home to learn about home," said Clarissa.

The talk did not run in a way to please Matilda, and she was silent. Presently they were called down to tea. Everybody suffering from a fit of taciturnity.

"Maria, sit up straight," said Mrs. Candy.

"I always sit so," was the answer.

"So, is not very graceful. Matilda does not sit so."

"Matilda was always straight; it's her way," said Maria.

"Well, make it your way too. Come! straighten up. What shoulders! One would think you were a boy playing at leap-frog."

"I don't know what 'leap-frog' is," said Maria, colouring; "and I don't think anybody would think I was anything but a girl anyhow. I get tired sitting up straight."

"When?" asked Clarissa.

Matilda's head was quite indescribable in the turn it gave at this moment. Her supper was done; she was leaving the table.

"You are not going into your mother's room?" said her aunt, catching her hand as she passed.

"You said you wished I would not."

"Yes, my dear, I am going up there immediately. Don't go out either, Matilda."

"I am going to church, Aunt Candy."

"I think not. Not to-night. I do not approve of so much church-going for little girls. You can study your lesson, you know, for next Sunday. I do not want to have anybody else sick on my hands till your mother is well."

Matilda's face expressed none of her disappointment; her head was even carried a little higher than usual as she left the room. But outside the door her steps flagged; and she went slowly up the stairs, asking herself if she was bound to mind what her aunt said. She was not clear about it. In the abstract, Matilda was well enough disposed to obey all lawful authority; just now a spirit of opposition had risen. Was this lawful authority? Mrs. Englefield was sick, to be sure; but did that give Mrs. Candy any right to interfere with what was known to be Mrs. Englefield's will when she was not sick? Matilda thought not. Then, on the other hand, she did not wish to do anything to displease her aunt, who had always been kind to her; she did not wish to change the relations between them. Slowly Matilda mounted stair after stair till she got to her room. There she stood by the window a moment, thinking and sorrowing; for if she did not wish to anger her aunt, neither did she wish to lose her evening in church, her sight of Mr. Richmond, and his sermon. And just then, the clear, sweet sound of the church bell came, with its first note, to tell that the service would begin in a quarter of an hour. It sounded like a friend's voice calling her. Her Aunt Candy's church bell joined in, and Mr. Everett's church, and Mr. Schoenflocker's church; but that one which Mr. Ulshoeffer rang was the loudest of all to Matilda's ear. She could hardly stand it. Then Maria burst in.

"What are you going to do?" said Matilda.

"Do? Why, I am going to church, of course; and in a hurry."

"And Anne and Letty?"

"Certainly; and Issa too."

Matilda said no more, but hastily made herself ready, and went down with the rest.



CHAPTER IX.

Anne and Letitia were to leave home in the afternoon of Monday; and Maria and Matilda went to school that morning as usual. But when the noon hour came, Matilda called her sister into a corner of the emptied schoolroom, and sat down with a face of business.

"What is the matter?" said Maria. "We must go home to dinner."

"I should like to speak to you here first."

"About what? Say it and be quick; for I am ever so hungry. Aunt Candy cut my breakfast short this morning."

"I wanted to say to you that we had better take home our books."

"What for?" said Maria, with opening eyes.

"Because, Maria, mamma was talking to me last night about it. You know there will be no one at home now, after to-day, but you and me."

"Aunt Erminia and Clarissa?"

"Nobody to do anything, I mean."

"Can't they do anything? I don't know what you are talking of, Matilda; but I know I want my dinner."

"Who do you think will get dinner to-morrow?"

"Well—mother's sick of course; and Anne and Letty are going. I should think Aunt Candy might."

"No, she won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because mother said so. She won't do anything."

"Then she'll have to get a girl to do things, I suppose."

"But Maria, that is just what mother wants she shouldn't do; because she'd have to pay for it."

"Who would have to pay for it?"

"Mamma."

"Why would she?"

"She said so."

"I don't see why she would, I am sure. If Aunt Erminia hires a girl, she'll pay for her."

"But that will come out of what Aunt Erminia pays to mamma; and what Aunt Erminia pays to mamma is what we have got to live upon."

"Who said so?"

"Mamma said so." Matilda answered with her lip trembling; for the bringing facts all down to hard detail was difficult to bear.

"Well, I do think," exclaimed Maria, "if I had a sister sick and not able to help herself, I would not be so mean!"

Matilda sat still and cried and said nothing.

"Who is going to do all the work then, Tilly?"

There would have been something comical, if it had not been sad, in the way the little girl looked up and said, "You and I."

"I guess we will!" said Maria, with opening eyes. "You and I! Take care of the house, and wash the dishes, and cook the dinner, and everything! You know we couldn't, Matilda; and what's more, I know we won't."

"Yes, mamma wishes it. We must; and so we can, Maria."

"I can't," said Maria, taking down her school cloak.

"But, Maria! we must. Mamma will be more sick if we do not; you heard what Aunt Candy said at breakfast, that she is fearfully nervous; and if she hears that there is a hired girl in the house, it will worry her dreadfully."

"It will be Aunt Candy's fault then," said Maria, fastening her cloak. "I never heard of anybody so mean in all my life!—never."

"But that don't help anything, Maria. And you and I must do what mamma said. You know we shall have little enough to live on, as it is, and if you take the pay of a hired girl out of it, there will be so little left."

"I've got my twenty-five dollars, that I can get summer dresses with; I am glad I haven't spent it," said Maria. "Come, Tilly; I'm going home."

"But, Maria, you have not said what you ought to say yet."

"What ought I to say?"

"I will help and do my part. We can manage it. Come, Maria, say that you will."

"Your part," said Maria. "What do you suppose your part would come to? What can such a child as you do?"

"Maria, now is the time to show whether you are really one of the Band of workers."

"I am, of course. I joined it."

"That would not make you one of them, if you don't do what they promised to do."

"When did I ever promise to be Aunt Candy's servant girl?" said Maria, fiercely. "I should like to know."

"But 'we are the servants of Christ,'" said Matilda, softly, her eyes glistening through.

"What then?"

"We promised to try to do whatever would honour Him."

"I don't know what all this affair has to do with it," said Maria. "You say we promised;—you didn't?"

"Yes, I did."

"You didn't join the Band?"

"Yes, I did."

"When?"

"A few days after you did."

"Why didn't you tell me? Did you tell Mr. Richmond?"