"Again!" said Clarissa.
"I do not like to be answered by gestures. Do you understand that?"
"No, ma'am; I do not know what you mean by saying it."
"You do not know that you answered me by a toss of your head just now?"
"No, ma'am; certainly not."
"I am very glad to hear it. Don't do it again."
It would have been very like Matilda to do it again just there; but bewilderment quite put down other emotions for the time, except the sense of being wronged, and that is a feeling very hard to bear. Matilda had scarcely known it before in her little life; the sensation was as new as it was painful. She was utterly unconscious of having done anything that ought to be found fault with. The darning needle went very fast for the next half-hour; and Matilda's cheek was bright.
"They haven't got a fire up-stairs, have they?" Maria questioned, when her little sister rejoined her.
"No, not to-day. Why?"
"You look as if you had been somewhere where it was warm."