"The minister knows a cup o' good tea when he sees it," answered the housekeeper.
Mr. Richmond laughed. "But don't you think Sally Eldridge, for instance, would know a good bed?"
"There ain't no possibilities o' makin' some o' them folks keerful and thrivin'," said the housekeeper, firmly. "'Tain't in 'em; and what's the use o' havin' things if folks ain't keerful? Sally Eldridge had her house respectable once; I mind her very well, when she kept the gate at Judge Brockenhurst's big place; and she had wages, and her man he had good wages; and now the peas is all out o' the basket. And is there any use, buyin' more to put in? The basket 'll never be mended. It'll let out as fast as it takes in."
"The basket, as you put it, is out of Sally's hands now," Miss Redwood. "She is one of the helpless ones. Don't you think it would be a good thing to make her life more comfortable? I think we had better take her some of this short-cake, Matilda. Miss Redwood, as for you, I shall expect to hear that you have lamed your arm doing something for her comfort, or half broken your back carrying a heavy basket to Lilac Lane, or something of that sort, judging by what I know of you already."
"I'm willin'," said the housekeeper. "But it ain't this child's business. She hain't no call to give all she's got to Sally Eldridge."
"I suppose," said the minister, with a look at Matilda, which both she and the housekeeper read with their hearts,—"I suppose she is thinking of the word that will be spoken one day, 'Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these,'—'He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth to the Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again'!"
"Then Mr. Richmond thinks it would be a good use of her money?"
"There might possibly be better; but if it is the best she knows, that is all she can do. I have a great opinion of doing what our hands find to do, Miss Redwood; if the Lord gives other work, He will send the means too."
"There's a frame bedstead lyin' up in the loft," said the housekeeper. "'Tain't no good to any one, and it only wants a new rope to cord it up; perhaps the minister would let Sally have that; and it would save so much."
"By all means, let her have that; and anything else we can spare. Now, Matilda, you and I will go and attend to our other business."