"I don't know," said David laughingly; "I don't know what women wear. But I suppose I can find out. Something warm, Tilly; the air is snapping and biting out of doors, I can tell you."
"O well, do see about it as soon as you can, David, and let them move in by Saturday; can't you?"
David promised. And when he was gone, and Matilda was alone in bed again at night, she fought out her whole fight with disappointment. Rather a hard fight it was. Matilda did not see why, when she was about a very good thing, so much of the pleasure of it should have been taken away from her. Why could not her sickness have been delayed for one week? and now the very flower and charm of her scheme must fall into the hands of others. She dwelt upon the details, from which she had looked for so much pleasure, and poured out hearty tears over them. She was as much in the dark nearly as Job had been; as much at a loss to know why all this should have befallen her. All the comfort she could get at was in imagining the scenes she could not now see, and fancying all over and over to herself how Sarah and her mother would look and feel.
After that day Matilda's improvement was steady. Soon she had Norton and Judy and even David running in and out at all hours, to see her or to tell her something.
"Great news," said Norton bursting in as usual one evening. "What do you think, Pink? David and Judy have been to be catechized."
"Catechized?" Matilda repeated. "Do they learn the catechism?"
"Not yours, I promise you," said Norton. "No, not exactly. But they have been to a Jewish catechizing; to be examined in the Jews' Scriptures, you know, and all that. They ought to have been catechized, it seems, when they were younger; but David and Judy have been travelling about and there has been no chance. Now they've got it! And O how Davy has been studying his Bible."
"His Bible is just like ours, isn't it?—all but the New Testament?"
"He thinks that's a pretty large 'all but.'"
"But the rest is just the same as ours?"