"How much are you going to give them, on that principle?" his mother inquired.
"I don't know, mamma."
"But speak!" she said impatiently. "You do know what you mean to do; you have it all mapped out already in your head, I know."
"I don't know how much I shall give, mamma. Whatever I think they want more than I do."
"You might wear homespun, and eat bread and water, at that rate."
"Mamma," said Judy, "we are very wicked to wear silk dresses. And just think of your lace shawl, mamma! And grandma's."
Matilda waited, and when nobody carried on the talk and the silence waited for her, she went on with Isaiah's beautiful words.
"'Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?'"
"What is 'loosing the bands of wickedness'?" asked Mrs. Lloyd.
"Now-a-days, grandmamma, I should say it was breaking up the killing rents and starving wages, and the whole system of tenement houses; for one thing."