"Maria, go to bed!" said her mother "And Matilda. Look what o'clock it is."
"I can't go, mamma, unless somebody will bring me some shoes. Mine are wet."
"Maria, fetch Tilly a pair of shoes. And go, children."
The children went; but Maria grumbled.
"Why couldn't you come up-stairs in your stocking feet? I should."
"It isn't nice," said the little one.
"Nice! you're so terribly nice you can't do anything other people do. There is no use in our coming to bed now; Anne and Letty will sit up till eleven o'clock, I shouldn't wonder; and we might just as well as not. Mamma can't get them to bed. Letty and Anne ought to have been at the meeting to-night. I wonder if they would have risen? Why did not you rise, Matilda?"
"I had not thought about it."
"Can't you do anything without thinking about it first?"
"I do not understand it yet."