"You are so particular, Tilly!" said her sister. "If you ever take a notion to be good, you'll have to leave off some of your ways, I can tell you. You needn't mind a little smell of candle-smoke. Go to sleep, and forget it."
"Don't good people mind disagreeable things?" said Matilda.
"No, of course, they don't. How could they get along, you know? Don't you remember what Mr. Richmond said?"
"I don't remember that he said that. But then, Maria, would you mind getting up to snuff out that candle? It's dreadful!"
"Nonsense! I shan't do it. I've just got warm."
Another minute or two gave tokens that Maria was past minding discomfort of any sort. She was fast asleep. Tilly waited, panted, looked at the glimmering red end of the candle snuff; finally got out of bed and crept to the dressing-table where it stood, and with some trouble managed to put a stop to smoke for that night.
CHAPTER II.
The house in which these things happened was a brown house, standing on the great high-road of travel which ran through the country, and just where a considerable village had clustered round it. From the upper windows you caught a glimpse of a fine range of blue mountains, lying miles away, and with indeed a broad river flowing between; but the river was too far off to be seen, and hidden behind intervening ground. From the lower windows you looked out into the village street; clean and wide, with comfortable houses standing along the way, not crowded together; and with gardens between and behind them, and many trees shielding and overhanging. The trees were bare now; the gardens a spread of snow; the street a white way for sleigh-runners; nevertheless, the aspect of the whole was hopeful, comfortable, thriving, even a little ambitious. Within this particular house, if you went in, you would see comfort, but little pretension; a neat look of things, but such things as had been mended and saved, and would not be rashly replaced. It was very respectable, therefore, and had no look of poverty. So of the family gathered around the breakfast-table on the morning after the Sunday-School meeting. It was a fair group, healthy and bright; the four girls and their mother. They were nicely dressed; and good appetites spoke of good spirits; and the provision on the table was abundant though plain.
Maria asked if Letty had finished her bonnet last night. Letty said she had.