What She Could

by Susan Warner

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. Schönflocker'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.