"How can you tell, Norton?"
"I can tell. I can see. They are jolly enough sometimes; when they aren't boring for cents."
"But that little girl, Norton,—all of them,—they hadn't much on!"
"No," said Norton; "I suppose not. It's no use to look and think about it, Pink. They are accustomed to it; it isn't what it would be to you. Don't think about it. You'll be always seeing sights in New York. The best way is not to see."
But Matilda did think about it "Not what it would be to her"! why, it would kill her, very quickly. Of course it must be not exactly so to these children, since they did not die; but what was it to them? Not warmth and comfort; not a pleasant spending of time for pleasure.
"Norton," she began again just as they were getting out of the car, "it seems to me that if those children sweep the streets, it is right to give them pay for it. They are trying to earn something."
"You can't," said Norton. "There are too many of them. You cannot be putting your hand in your pocket for pennies all the while, and stopping under the heels of the horses. I do once in a while give them something. You can't be doing it always."
CHAPTER VII.
Norton asked to be allowed to go with the shopping party, which his mother refused. To Matilda's disappointment, she took Miss Judy instead. Matilda would rather have had any other one of the household. However, nothing could spoil the pleasure of driving to Stewart's. To know it so cold, and yet feel so comfortable; to see how the dust flew in whirlwinds and the wind caught people and staggered them, and yet not to be touched by a breath; to see how the foot travellers had to fight with both wind and dust, and to feel at the same time the easy security, the safe remove from everything so ugly and disagreeable, which they themselves enjoyed behind the glass of their Clarence; it was a very pleasant experience. The other two did not seem to enjoy it; they were accustomed to the sensation, or it had ceased to be one for them. Matilda was in a state of delight every foot of the way. This was what she had come to, this safety and ease and elegance and immunity. She was higher than the street or the street-goers, by just so much as the height of the axletree of the carriage. How about those little dust covered street-sweepers?