"I have enough to do to know how to get breakfast. Tilly, run and grind the coffee and make it—quick, will you? now I am in a hurry."
Matilda thought Maria might have done it herself, while she was waiting for the soda. But she said nothing of that. In ten minutes more the coffee was made, the corn bread was ready, and the ladies came down.
Matilda was in a mood as gentle as the morning, and almost as cloudless. Her morning's work and walk and the meeting with Lem Dow had given her an appetite; and the work of the night before had left a harmony in her spirit, as if sweet music were sounding there. Her little face was thus like the very morning itself, shining with the fair shining of inward beauty; in contrast with all the other faces at the table. For Clarissa's features were coldly handsome and calm; Mrs. Candy's were set and purposeful; and poor Maria's were sadly clouded and out of humour. Matilda took little heed of them all; she was thinking of Lemuel Dow.
"Matilda," said her aunt, suddenly—"I wish you to come to me every morning to read. A person who has taken the step you took last night, is no longer a child, but deserves to be treated as a woman. It is necessary that you should fit yourself for a woman's place. Come to me at ten o'clock. I will have you read to me some books that will make you better understand the things you have taken upon you, and the things you have done."
"Why, I am a child yet, Aunt Candy," Matilda answered in some dismay.
"You think so, do you?"
"Yes, ma'am,—I feel so; and I am."
"I thought you considered yourself more than a child. But you have assumed a woman's place, and it is now necessary that you should be fitted for it. I think the best way is to get the preparation first; but in your church, it seems, they prefer the other course. You are under my care in the house, at any rate, and I shall do my duty by you."
"I do not understand you, Aunt Candy," Matilda spoke, quite bewildered.
"No, my dear, I suppose not. That is just what I think so objectionable. But we will do what we can to remedy it."