"Much obliged to you, miss," returned the bookseller, heartily. "It's not much amusement the poor child has. I'm always meaning to do better for her, but I'm so tied with the shop that—I don't know hardly how it is, but somehow we go on the same old way. She'll be delighted."
Lucy went into the back parlor, and there sat Mattie, with her legs curled up beneath her on the window-sill, reading a little book, thumbed and worn at the edges, and brown with dust and use.
"Well, Miss Burton," she cried, before Lucy had time to speak, "I've found something here. I think it's what people call poetry. I'm not sure; but I'm sure it's good, whatever it is. Only I can't read it very well. Will you read it to me, please, miss? I do like to be read to."
"I want you to come out for a walk with me, Mattie," said Lucy, who was in no humor for reading.
Wise Mattie glanced up in her face. She had recognized the sadness in her tone.
"Read this first, please, Miss Burton," she said. "I think it will do you good. Things will go wrong. I'm sure it's very sad. And I don't know what's to be done with the world. It's always going wrong. It's just like father's watch. He's always saying there's something out of order in its inside, and he's always a-taking of it to the doctor, as he calls the watchmaker to amuse me. Only I'm not very easy to amuse," reflected Mattie, with a sigh. "But," she resumed, "I wish I knew the doctor to set the world right. The clock o' St. Jacob's goes all right, but I'm sure Mr. Potter ain't the doctor to set the world right, any more than Mr. Deny is for Mr. Kitely's watch."
The associations in Mattie's mind were not always very clear either to herself or other people; they were generally just, notwithstanding.
"But you have never been to Mr. Potter's church to know, Mattie."
"Oh! haven't I, just? Times and times. Mr. Spelt has been a-taking of me. I do believe mother thinks I am going to die, and wants to get me ready. I wonder what it all means?"