"And I am well, I assure you; better than I ever expected to be in this world, mother. I mean to come up beside you a bit. I want to tell you something."
"I don't know, Mattie," answered Mr. Spelt, with some embarrassment. "Is it anything in particular?"
"In particular! Well, I should think so," returned Mattie, with a triumph just dashed with displeasure, for she had not been accustomed to any hesitation in accepting her advances on the part of Mr. Spelt. "I should think so." Then, lowering her voice to a keen whisper, she added, "I've been to see God in his own house."
"Been to church, have you?" said Mr. Spelt.
Now I am sorry to say that Spelt was behaving dishonestly—not from choice, but from embarrassment and fear springing from a false conscientiousness. And Mattie felt at once that Mr. Spelt was not behaving like himself.
"No, Mr. Spelt," she answered with dignity—bridling indeed; "I've not been to church. You don't call that God's house, do you? Them! They're nothing but little shops like your own, Mr. Spelt. But God's house!—Take me up, I say. Don't make me shout such things in the open street."
Thus adjured, Mr. Spelt could stand out no longer. He stooped over his threshold and lifted Mattie toward him. But the moment her head reached the level of his floor, she understood it all. In her old place in the corner sat the little demoniac Poppie, clothed and in her right mind. A true observer, however, would have seen from her pale, thin face that possibly her quietude was owing more to weakness than to any revolution in her nature.
"Well!" said Mattie, with hauteur. "Will you set me down again, if you please, Mr. Spelt."
"I think, perhaps," said the tailor, meekly, holding the child still suspended in the air, "I could find room for you both. The corner opposite the door there, Mattie," he added, looking round suggestively in the direction of the spot signified.
"Put me down," insisted Mattie, in such a tone that Mr. Spelt dared not keep her in suspense any longer, but lowered her gently to the ground. All the time Poppie had been staring with great black eyes, which seemed to have grown much larger during her illness, and, of course, saying nothing.