This remark threatened to disturb the harmony of the party; so Mrs. Englefield broke it up, and sent everybody to bed.
"How do you like our Mr. Richmond, Clarissa?" she asked, as they were separating.
"I don't know, Aunt Marianne; it struck me he was something of an enthusiast."
"That is just what I think," said Mrs. Englefield.
"Those people are dangerous, Marianne," said Mrs. Candy.
CHAPTER V.
The next day but one, in the afternoon, a little figure set out from Mrs. Englefield's gate on a solitary expedition. She had left her sisters and cousin in high debate, over the various probabilities of pleasure attainable through the means of twenty-five dollars. Matilda listened gravely for a while; then left them, put on her hood and cloak, and went out alone. It was rather late in the short winter afternoon; the slanting sunbeams made a gleam of cheer, though it was cold cheer too, upon the snowy streets. They stretched away, the white streets, heaped with banks of snow where the gutters should be, overhung with brown branches of trees, where in summer the leafy canopy made a pleasant shade all along the way. No shade was wanted now; the air was growing more keen already since the sun had got so far down in the west. Tilly turned the corner, where by Mr. Forshew's hardware shop there was often a country waggon standing, and always a knot of loitering men and boys gathering or retailing the news, if there was any; when there was none, seeking a poorer amusement still in stories and jests, mingled with profanity and tobacco. Tilly was always glad to have passed the corner; not that there was the least danger of incivility from any one lingering there, but she did not like the neighbourhood of such people. She turned up towards the church, which stood in one of the principal streets of the village. Matilda herself lived in the other principal street. The two were at right angles to each other, each extending perhaps half a mile, with comfortable houses standing along the way; about the "corner" they stood close together, for that was the business quarter, and there were the stores. Passing the stores and shops, there came next a succession of dwelling-houses, some of more and some of less pretension; in general it was less. The new houses of the successful tradesmen were for the most part in the street where Matilda's mother lived. These were many of them old and low; some were poor. Here there was a doctor's shop; there a heap of dingy sheep skins and brown calf hides cast down at a door, told of the leather store; here and there hung out a milliner's sign. A few steps further on the other side of the way, a great brick factory stood; Matilda had no very distinct notion of what wares it turned out, but the children believed they were iron works of some sort. A cross street here led to side ways which extended parallel with the main thoroughfare, one on the north and one on the south of it, and which, though more scatteringly built up, were yet a considerable enlargement of the village. A little further on, and Matilda had reached the church; in her language the church, though only one of several in which the villagers delighted. A great creamy-brown edifice, of no particular style of architecture, with a broad porch upheld by a row of big pillars, and a little square tower where hung a bell, declared to be the sweetest and clearest of all in the neighbourhood. So, many thought, were the utterances inside the church. Just beyond, Matilda could see the lecture-room, with its transepts, and its pretty hood over the door, for all which and sundry other particulars concerning it she had a private favour; but Matilda did not go so far this afternoon. Short of the lecture-room, a gate in the fence of the church grounds stood open; a large gate, through which waggons and carriages sometimes passed; Matilda turned in there, and picked her way over the ridgy snow down the lane that led to the parsonage.
The parsonage sat thus quietly back from the sights and noises of the street; a little brown house, it looked, half hidden in summer by the sweeping foliage of the elms that overarched the little lane; half sheltered now in winter by a goodly pine-tree that stood in the centre of the little plot of grass round which swept the road to the front-door. Wheels or runners had been there, for the road was tracked with them; but not many, for the villagers needed no such help to get to the minister, and there were few of the church people who lived at a distance and could leave their work and take their teams on a week-day to come a-pleasuring; and still fewer who were rich enough to do as they liked at all times. There were some; but Matilda ran little risk of meeting them; and so mounted the parsonage steps and lifted the knocker with no more than her own private reasons for hesitation, whatever those might be. She knocked, however, and steps carne within, and Miss Redwood opened the door.
"Well!" she said, "here's the first one this blessed afternoon. I thought I was going to get along for once without any one; but such luck don't come to me. Wipe the snow off, dear, will you, clean? for my hall's as nice as—well, I don't know what; as nice as it had ought to be. That will do. Now, come in, for the air's growin' right sharp. What is it, my dear?"