"Not know it?" said Mrs. Laval, holding her back to look at her. "Why, child, you have grown thin!"
"It's the hot weather, Aunt Candy says."
"And pale!" said Mrs. Laval. "Yes, you have; pale and thin. Have you been ill?"
"No, ma'am," said Matilda; but her eyes were watering now in very gladness and tenderness.
"Not ill?" said the lady. "And yet you are changed,—I do not know how; it isn't all thinness, or paleness. What is the matter with you, dear?"
"Nothing—only I am so glad," Matilda managed to say, as Mrs. Laval's arms again came round her. The eyes of mother and son met expressively.
"I don't like to see people cry for gladness," whispered the lady. "That is being entirely too glad. Let us go and see where you are to live while you are with me. Norton, send York up with her box."
Matilda shook herself mentally, and went up-stairs with Mrs. Laval. Such easy, soft-going stairs! and then the wide light corridor with its great end window; and then Mrs. Laval went into a room which Matilda guessed was her own, and through that passed to another, smaller, but large enough still, where she paused.
"You shall be here," she said; "close by me; so that you cannot feel lonely."
"Oh, I could not feel lonely," cried Matilda. "I have a room by myself at home."