"Now that's just what I'm determined I will not stand," said the little maid.
"What do you mean, Mattie?" exclaimed Lucy, surprised and bewildered.
"I'll tell you what I mean, and that soon enough," said Mattie. "It's all very kind of Mrs. Morgingturn to ask you and me, what are well-to-do people, and in comfortable circumstances, as people say, to go and spend this day or that with her. And do you know, Mr. Spelt"—here Mattie drew herself in and turned her face right round from Lucy to the tailor, for the side of her mouth which she used for speech was the left, and the furthest from Spelt—"it just comes into my head that this kind lady who gives me petticoats to make instead of doll's trousers, is doing the very thing you read about last night out of the New Testament before I went into bed. It's so nice now there's light enough to read a little before we part for the night! ain't it, mother?"
"I know, I know," said the tailor in a low voice, not wishing to intrude himself into the conversation.
"What did Mr. Spelt read to you, Mattie?" asked Lucy.
"He read about somebody—"
It was very remarkable how Mattie would use the name of God, never certainly with irreverence, but with a freedom that seemed to indicate that to her he was chiefly if not solely an object of metaphysical speculation or, possibly, of investigation; while she hardly ever uttered the name of the Saviour, but spoke of him as Somebody. And I find that I must yet further interrupt the child herself to tell an anecdote about her which will perhaps help my reader to account for the fact I am about to finish telling. She was not three years old when she asked her mother, a sweet, thoughtful woman, in many ways superior to her husband, though not intellectually his equal—who made the tree in Wood Street? Her mother answered, of course, "God made it, my pet;" for by instinct, she never spoke of her God without using some term of endearment to her child. Mattie answered—"I would like it better if a man made it"—a cry after the humanity of God—a longing in the heart of the three years' child for the Messiah of God. Her mother did not know well enough to tell her that a man, yes, the man did make them—"for by Him all things were made;"—but Mattie may have had some undefined glimmering of the fact, for, as I have said, she always substituted Somebody for any name of the Lord. I cannot help wishing that certain religious people of my acquaintance would, I do not say follow queer little Mattie's example, but take a lesson from queer little Mattie.
"He read about somebody saying you shouldn't ask your friends and neighbors who could do the same for you again, but you should ask them that couldn't, because they hadn't a house to ask you to, like Poppie there."
Lucy looked round and saw the most tattered little scarecrow—useless even as such in the streets of London, where there are only dusty little sparrows and an occasional raven—staring at—I cannot call it a group—well, it was a group vertically, if not laterally—and not knowing or caring what to make of it, only to look at Lucy, and satisfy her undefined and undefinable love by the beholding of its object. She loved what was lovely without in the least knowing that it was lovely, or what lovely meant. And while Lucy gazed at Poppie, with a vague impression that she had seen the child before, she could not help thinking of the contrast between the magnificent abode of the Morgensterns—for magnificent it was, even in London—and the lip of the nest from which the strange child preached down into the world the words "friends and neighbors."
But she could say nothing more to Mattie till she had told, word for word, the whole story to Mrs. Morgenstern, who, she knew, would heartily enjoy the humor of it. Nor was Lucy, who loved her Lord very truly, even more than she knew, though she was no theologian like Thomas, in the least deterred from speaking of Somebody, by the fact that Mrs. Morgenstern did not receive him as the Messiah of her nation. If he did not hesitate to show himself where he knew he would not be accepted, why should she hesitate to speak his name? And why should his name not be mentioned to those who, although they had often been persecuted in his name by those who did not understand his mind, might well be proud that the man who was conquering the world by his strong, beautiful will, was a Jew.