"Yes, I suppose so; every one does."
"Well, was that because you were proud of it?"
All the girls laughed, and Lizzy exclaimed, "Well done, Therese! That is what Miss Oliver would call an apt and pertinent illustration."
"You had better mind your own business, Therese Beaubien," said Matilda. "I don't think Tone Beaubien's daughter has any business crowding herself in with decent people, anyhow. Well, there! You needn't all look at me as if I had committed murder," she added, with an uneasy laugh, as she felt the glances of contempt which fell upon her from all sides. "I shouldn't have said anything if she hadn't begun it. I do think so, and a great many other people besides me."
"Then you and your 'great many other people' had better keep your thoughts to yourselves," said Lizzy Gates, angrily. "You—Well, there, Julia! I won't begin, so you needn't look at me so. Never mind, Therese dear; nobody cares for what such people say."
"I think this missionary business is all nonsense, any way, and so does pa," continued Matilda, feeling, to do her justice, rather ashamed of her meanness and willing to divert attention from herself. "Pa says he should come to church more only for this everlasting begging. He says, too, that it is all nonsense to take the Sunday school collection from the children and then give it to foreign missions. It ought to go to support the school, and I think so too. I think we might just as well use our forty dollars to buy new Sunday school books with."
"But where would be the charity in that, Matilda?" asked Marion. "It would be just taking money out of one pocket to put it into the other."
"Or we could have a nice Christmas festival," continued Matilda. "Pa says he gave a dollar and a half last year, and the presents we had off the tree didn't come to more than a dollar."
"Because all the nicest and prettiest things went to the poor children," said Julia Parmalee, who never lost patience in explaining matters.
"Well, anyhow, I am not going to give money to help buy gold watches for anybody's niece," said Matilda, and with that she departed.