"Good for?" said Matilda; "why, they are good for other things, Miss Redwood."
"I don't think a gown is worth much that is too good to work in; it is just a bag to pack so many hours of your life in, and lose 'em."
"Lose them how?"
"By not doin' anythin', child! What's life if it ain't busy?"
"But don't you have company dresses, Miss Redwood?"
"I don't let company hinder my work much," said Miss Redwood, as she shoved a pan of biscuits into the oven of the stove. "What do you think 'ud become of the minister?"
"O yes!" said Matilda laughing; "but then, you see, I haven't got any minister to take care of."
"Maybe you will, some day," said Miss Redwood with a kind of grim smile; "and if you don't know how, what'll become of you? or of him either?"
It seemed a very funny and very unlikely supposition to Matilda. "I don't think I shall ever have anybody to take care of but mamma and Norton," she said smiling.
"I s'pose they've money enough to make it easy," said Miss Redwood. "But somehow—that don't seem to me livin'."