"Oh, I would like it very much—if I could."
"Sit still then," said the housekeeper, "till my floor's dry. Why hain't you been to see me before, eh? Everybody else in creation has been in at the parsonage door but you. You ain't beginnin' to take up with that French minister, air you?"
"Oh no, indeed, Miss Redwood! But he isn't a French minister."
"I don't care what he is," said the housekeeper; "he takes airs; and a minister as takes airs had better be French, I think. What do you go to hear him for, then?"
"Aunt Candy takes me."
"Then you don't go because you want to? that's what I am drivin' at."
"Oh no, indeed I don't, Miss Redwood. I would never go, if I could help myself."
"What harm would happen to you if you didn't?" asked the housekeeper, dryly. But Matilda was distressed and could not tell.
"There is ministers as takes airs," continued the housekeeper sitting up and giving her mop a final wring, "but they can't kind o' help it; it's born with 'em, you may say; it's their natur. It's a pity, but so it is. That's one thing. I'm sorry for 'em, for I think they must have a great load to carry. But when a man goes to bowin' and curchying, outside o' society, and having a tailor of his own to make his coat unlike all other folks, I think I don't want to have him learn me manners. Folks always takes after their minister—more or less."
"Do you think so?" said Matilda, dubiously.