Mrs. Laval laughed and kissed her. "Suppose I supply that deficiency? You could not very well do it without money, unless you were a witch. But if I give you the money, darling? Here are twenty dollars; now you may spend them, or I will spend them for you. Would you like to do it?"
"I would like to do it very much!" said Matilda flushing with excitement,—"if I can."
"Very well. Norton will shew you where pretty things are to be bought, of various sorts. You can get everything in New York. I expect I shall not see you now for three weeks to come; you will be shopping all the time. You have a great deal to do."
Matilda flushed more and more, clasped the notes in her hand, and looked delighted.
"Well, I suppose I must let you go," said Mrs. Laval, "for I must get ready for dinner, and you must. But first,—Matilda, when are you going to call me mamma? This is not to make you forget the mother you had, maybe a better one than I am; but I am your mother now. I want you to call me so."
Matilda threw her arms round Mrs. Laval's neck again. "Yes—I will," she whispered. There were new kisses interchanged between them, full of much meaning; and then Matilda went up to her room.
At the top of the stairs, in each story, there was a large open space, a sort of lobby, carpeted and warm and bright, into which the rooms opened. Matilda paused when she got to her own, and stood by the rails thinking. The twenty dollars had not at all taken away her regret on the subject of Letitia's dress; rather the abundance which came pouring in upon her pricked her conscience the more with the contrast between her own case and that of her sister, which a little self-denial on her part would have rendered less painful. Mrs. Laval had unwittingly helped the feeling too by her slight treatment of the matter of the boots; it appeared that she would never have known or cared, if Matilda had got the objectionable square toes. Judy would; but then, was Judy's laugh to be set against Letitia's joy in a new dress? a thing really needed? Matilda could not feel satisfied with her action. When she bought those boots, she had not done it according to her motto; that was the conclusion.
She came to that conclusion before she opened the door of her room; but then she took up the consideration of how the mischief might be remedied; and all the while she was dressing and putting away her walking things, her head in a delightful bustle of thoughts tried different ways of disposing of her money. She must consult Norton; that was the end of it.
"Well," said Norton, when she had a chance to do this after dinner,—"I see what is before us; we have got to go into all the stores in New York between this and Christmas; so we had best begin to-morrow. To-morrow we will go— Do you know what sort of things you want, Pink?"
"Only one or two."