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"Do what, boy?"

"Take up a witch's trade?"

"I have not laid it down yet."

"No, ma'am; but what put it in your head?"

"I wanted my share of the fun," said the old lady.

"Did you get it, grandmamma?" asked David.

"Yes. A very good share."

"Did you ask everybody such questions as you asked us?" Norton inquired.

"I did not want to know the same thing about all of you."

"No, ma'am. Did you find out a good deal, grandmother?"

But Mrs. Lloyd laughed and declined to answer.

"There is something more I want to find out," she said. "I want to know what makes this little girl look so happy. She doesn't say a word, but her smiles speak for her!"

"Who, Matilda?" said Norton.

"It's easy enough to be smiling," said Judy with slight scorn.

"You might practise it then a little, and do no hurt," remarked Norton.

"Nobody ought to be always smiling," returned Judy. "It's vulgar. And it doesn't mean anything, either."

"Hush, Judy," said her mother.

"What were you smiling about, Matilda?" Mrs. Lloyd asked.

"A great many things I was thinking of, ma'am."

But the little girl's face was so gleeful as she answered, and the smile and the sparkle were so pleasant, that the old lady's curiosity was raised.

"A great many things?" she repeated, "A great many things to be glad of? I should like to know what they are. Come, I will make a bargain with you. I will give you a silver penny for your thoughts; and my silver penny shall be a golden half-eagle."

"For my thoughts, ma'am?" said Matilda, half bewildered; while the other young ones burst out like a pack of hounds after their leader.

"A half-eagle," Mrs. Lloyd repeated, "for all your thoughts; if you will give me them all. I want to know all the things you are feeling so glad about."

"Grandmamma, you'll do as much for me?" cried Judy. "Only, mine will take an eagle to bring them down. They fly high. You might have bought hers, I am confident, for a duck or a pigeon."

"I should like to make a bargain too, grandmother," said Norton; "if you are in that mood."

"Do you think your thoughts are worth anything?" said his grandmother; – "to anybody but yourself?"

"Whose are?" said David.

"Mine are not," said Matilda. She had flushed high, for she saw that the old lady was in earnest; and five dollars was a good deal to her just now.

"Everything is worth what it will fetch, though," said David. "I advise you to close with the offer, Matilda. Five dollars is five dollars, you know."

Matilda's eyes went doubtfully to Mrs. Lloyd.

"Yes," said the old lady smiling. "I will stand to my part of the bargain, if you will stand to yours. But mind, I want all."

"There were so many things," Matilda began; "it would take me a good while to tell them."

"Never mind; we have nothing better to do," said Mrs. Lloyd. "We are at leisure."

"Time's nothing," said Norton, in great amusement.

"At ten dollars or so an hour," added David.

Poor Matilda was in some difficulty. She was furnishing the entertainment of the whole circle; for even Mrs. Bartholomew put down her paper, and Mrs. Laval was smiling, and Mrs. Lloyd was waiting, and the children were all open-eyed. But she had nothing to be ashamed of; and five dollars! —

"I was feeling glad about my watch," she began, "and about my picture – O so very glad! I think they have hardly been out of my mind all day."

"Picture? what picture?" said Judy.

"Hush!" said her grandmother.

"She didn't have any picture!" Judy went on. Matilda looked at her and said nothing.

"Did you?" said Judy. "What was it? Is it in a locket?"

"You can attend to her afterwards, Matilda," said Mrs. Lloyd. "At present you are engaged with me. There is nobody here but you and me."

Matilda sincerely wished it had been so; but she had several curious pairs of ears listening to her.

"Then I was glad, I believe, about all the pleasure of last night, and the Christmas tree, and my other presents; but that wasn't all. To-day has been so very pleasant, and this afternoon particularly."

"This afternoon!" cried Judy. "Why she was away at that horrid Sunday school."

"She don't think it is horrid," said Norton, displeased.

"You don't mean she shall get through what she has to say," remarked David.

"If you would all hold your tongues, there would be some chance," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Try again, Matilda. Was there more? What made the afternoon so pleasant?"

"It always is at that school," said Matilda. "But besides that, this afternoon I believe I got some help for something I want to do; and thinking about that, and about what I want to do, was part of I what was feeling so glad about."

"Well if that isn't a confused statement of facts!" said Judy. "Feeling so glad about, – when?"

"When Mrs. Lloyd asked me what I was smiling at."

"But I am to have your thoughts, you know," said Mrs. Lloyd, with a rather pleasant smile. "You have not told me yet what it is you want to do, the thought of which is so agreeable."

"I did tell it, to the witch last night," said Matilda. "Do you want me to tell it again, now, ma'am?"

"Certainly. You don't think I am a witch, do you?"

On that point Matilda did not give her thoughts; but as desired, she told the story, briefly, of Sarah and her home, and of the reforms proposed in the latter. The attention of her hearers was marked, although most of them indeed had known the matter before.

"What was there in all this to make you so very glad?" inquired Judy.

Matilda hesitated, and could not find what to say.

"Pink has her own ways of being happy you see," Norton remarked.

"She is not the only one, I hope," said David.

"The only one, what?" said Judy sharply. "You are as bad as she is, David, to-night, for talking thick."

"Have we got through, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Lloyd kindly.

"Through all the things that were making me feel glad?" said Matilda. "No, ma'am – not quite." And she stopped and flushed.

"Let us have it," said Mrs. Lloyd. "A bargain is a bargain."

"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda. "I am afraid – I was afraid – perhaps you wouldn't understand me. I was glad of all these things; – and then, I thought, I was so glad that I knew about Jesus; and that I am his child; and that he has given me all these other things to be glad about, and this work to do for Sarah!"

There was a profound silence for a minute or two. Judy was astonished out of speech. David, perhaps, disgusted. Norton was a little proud that Matilda had independence enough to dare to speak out, even if he chafed a little under the subject of her plain speaking. The elder ladies looked at one another with an odd expression in their eyes. When Mrs. Lloyd spoke she went back to the practical question.

"How much money do you expect it will take, to do what you want for these poor people, Matilda?"

"I don't know, ma'am, yet. My teacher will find out and tell me."

"Is it your teacher who has suggested the plan?"

"The plan? – O no, ma'am," said Matilda. "It is my plan. I have been talking him into it."

"Who is he?" Mrs. Lloyd asked.

"Mr. Wharncliffe."

"What Wharncliffe? Is he any connection of General Wharncliffe?"

"His brother," said Norton.

This seemed, Matilda did not know why, to give satisfaction to her elders. Mrs. Lloyd went on with an unbent face.

"How much money have you got, Matilda, to work with?"

"Not a great deal, ma'am; I have saved a little. It won't take such a very great deal to get all I want. It is only common things."

"Saved!" Judy burst out. "Saved! Now we have got at it. This is the secret. This is why we are such good temperance people and think it's wicked to buy liqueur glasses. O yes! we save our money that way, no doubt."

"Judy," said her brother, "I'm ashamed of you."

"No need," said Judy coolly. "Keep it for yourself, next occasion."

"What is all this?" said Mrs. Lloyd.

"Nothing that had better go any further," said Mrs. Laval. "Nothing of any consequence, mother."

"It is of no consequence," said Judy, "because David and Norton made it up."

"And Judy didn't," said Norton.

"Not I; it was your affair," said the young lady. "My connections are not given to saving."

"That is very true indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Bartholomew, bursting out into a laugh; "and you, Judy, least of all your 'connections.'"

"But what is all this?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd, seeing that the faces around her were moved by very various sorts of expression. It had to come out. Judy and Norton told the story between them, with some difficulty. Matilda felt very sorry, and very doubtful of the effect. David looked exceedingly dissatisfied. Mrs. Lloyd listened with unchanged gravity.

"There! you may call it what you like," Judy said in conclusion. "But I like to have things go by their right names."

"It wouldn't be always best for you," said her brother.

"Do you think it is wrong, my dear, to drink wine?" Mrs. Lloyd asked, addressing Matilda.

Matilda did not well know what to answer. She, a child, what business had she to 'think' anything about the right or the wrong of things done by people so much older and wiser than herself? And yet, that did not change the truth, and the truth was what she must answer.

"I have promised not to do it," she said, almost shrinkingly.

"That affects your own drinking or not drinking. Do you think it is wrong for other people?"

Again Matilda hesitated. She would have welcomed almost any interruption of Judy's; but this time Judy kept as still as a mouse. And so did everybody else. Matilda's colour came and went.

"If you please, ma'am," she said at last, "I don't want to say what you will think rude."

"I will not think it rude," said Mrs. Lloyd with a little laugh. "I want to know what notion such a child as you has got in her head. Do you think it is wrong?"

"Yes, ma'am," Matilda-answered softly.

"Hear her!" cried Judy. "She has got an idea that wine is money in another form, and heavy to drink."

Matilda thought that Judy had unwittingly put her very meaning into the words; but she did not say so.

"My dear," said Mrs. Lloyd, "I have drunk wine all my life. It has never hurt me."

Matilda was silent.

"Is that your notion, that it is unwholesome?"

"No, ma'am."

"What then?"

"People take too much of it," said Matilda; "and it ruins them; and if all good people would let it alone, wouldn't it help to make the rest let it alone?"

"Insufferable piggishness!" said Mrs. Bartholomew. "You must excuse me, Zara. I hope you will teach your adopted child better manners, arid get rid of a little of this superb folly."

"I am not so sure about the folly," said Mrs. Laval.

"I am sure about the manners," said Mrs. Lloyd. "She has said nothing but what I have made her say. Now, my dear, you have fulfilled your part of the bargain between us, and I will do my part."

The old lady produced a gold five dollar piece from her purse and put it in Matilda's hand. Then drawing the child kindly towards her, she added,

"And from this time you must call me grandmamma, will you? as the others do; and I will call you my grandchild."

She kissed the astonished Matilda, and the subject was dismissed. At least by the elders; the young people did not so easily let it drop. No sooner were they by themselves than Judy held forth in a long tirade, about "presumption" and "artfulness" and "underhand ways;" waxing warm as she went on; till Norton was provoked to answer, and the debate between them grew hot. Matilda said never a word, nor did David; she kept outwardly very quiet; but an hour after, if anybody could have seen her he would have seen a little figure cuddled down in a corner of her own room and weeping abundant tears. So ended the Christmas Sunday and the Christmas festival.

CHAPTER IV

There were too many pleasant things on hand for Judy's behaviour to have any very lasting effect on Matilda's spirits, besides that a good share of independence was one of her valuable characteristics. With the new light of Monday morning, her heart leapt up anew at thought of all the comfort preparing for Sarah and at her growing stock of means for the same. She got out her purse and counted her money. With the new gold piece there was a nice little sum; not enough indeed, but Matilda had hopes of David, and hopes floating and various, that somehow what was needful would be forthcoming when the time came.

The week was about half gone, when one afternoon David came to Matilda's door and knocked. Matilda had shut herself up to write a letter to Maria, and opened the door to David with a good deal of surprise and pleasure. The second time, this was. He came in and sat down.

"Where do you think I have been?" said he.

"To see Sarah?" said Matilda eagerly.

"You are quick," said David smiling. "No, I have not been to see Sarah exactly; but I have been to see where she lives and all about her."

"Did you see where she lives?"

"Yes."

"David, isn't it horrid?"

"It's disgusting!" said David.

"But she can't help it," said Matilda, again eagerly.

"No, she can't, but somebody ought to help it. There ought not to be any such horror possible in such a city as this."

"So I think. But who ought to help it, David? How could anybody help it?"

"There used to be a way among my people," said the boy proudly. "The corners of the cornfields, and the last of the grapes on the vines, and the dropped ears of corn, and the last beatings of the olives, were commanded to be left for the poor."

"But there are no vines nor cornfields nor olives here," said Matilda.

"Nothing so good," replied David. "I believe people grow wicked in cities."

"Then do you think it is wicked to build cities?"

"I don't know about that," said David; "that's another matter. Without cities a great many good things would be impossible."

"Would they? what?" said Matilda.

"Well, commerce, you know; without great centres of commerce, there could not be great commerce; and there would not be great fortunes then; and without great for tunes there could not be the grand things in music and painting and sculpture and architecture and books, that there are now."

What "great centres of commerce" might be, Matilda could not tell; and she did not like to ask David too many questions. She suddenly came out with an objection.

"But Abraham did not live in a city."

David started, looked at her, and then laughed a little.

"Abraham! no, he did not; and he was a rich man; but one rich man here and there could not do those things I spoke of."

"Then, wouldn't it be better there should be no cities?" said Matilda.

"Better than what? Better than have cities with such dreadful poor people? Can't have the good without the bad, I suppose."

"You said, people grow wicked in cities."

"Well, they do."

"Then ought people to build cities?"

"I don't know how the world would get on, at that rate," said David smiling. "Anyhow the cities are built; and we are living in one; and one corner house in it gives you and me as much as we can do."

"A single room in it, David."

"Yes. Well, you know you consulted a witch the other night."

"Did I?" said Matilda.

"The witch gave me orders to search into your matter. I have done it, and told her what I had found; and she has commissioned me to deliver to you – this."

So saying, David produced a little gold piece, the very mate to the one Matilda had earned by telling her thoughts.

"O David!" Matilda exclaimed, – "O David!"

"Well?" said David smiling. "What?"

"I am getting so much!"

"You will want it."

"But I don't see how it should take such a very great deal of money just to do this little thing," said Matilda; and she went on to explain Mr. Wharncliffe's propositions and helping agency. Before she had well got through, Norton dashed in.

"Hallo! David here? All the better. Isn't she a jewel of a witch, David?"

David looked up with a responsive twinkle in his eye; and Matilda asked what he meant.

"Mean?" said Norton, "I mean the witch. You went to see the witch, Pink; haven't you heard from her?"

"Yes! just this minute; but Norton, I don't know what you expected to hear. What have you heard?"

"Glorious!" cried Norton, swinging his cap joyously. "We've got that little room, Pink, for a greenhouse; and a stove in it for cold nights; and shelves and benches and frames and all those things I'll put up my self; and then we'll have a show of flowers. Your hyacinths will do a great deal better up there."

"Will they?" said Matilda. "They are doing very nicely here; and they look nicely."

"Now we can do all we've a mind to, Pink. I'll have some amaryllis roots right off; and japonicas, japonicas, Pink; and everything you like. Geraniums, and Bovardias, and Azaleas, and Cacti; and Cyclamens; and Cassia and Arbutillon. Fuchsias too, and what you like!"

"Why that little room will not hold everything," said Matilda. "Can't you have some roses?"

"Roses? O yes, and carnations; everything you like. Yes, it will hold everything. Lots of tulips, too."

"How about the money?" David asked.

"It don't take a fortune to stock a little greenhouse."

"You haven't got a fortune."

"I have got enough."

"Have anything left for other objects?"

"What objects?" said Norton. "I haven't but one object at present. One's enough."

"But Matilda has an object too," David said smiling enough to show his white teeth; "and her object will want some help, I'm thinking."

"What object?" said Norton.

"Don't you remember? I told you, Norton, about Sarah" —

"O that!" said Norton with a perceptible fall of his mental thermometer. "That's all your visions, Pink; impracticable; fancy. The idea of you, with your little purse, going into the mud of New York, and thinking to dean the streets."

"Certainly," said David, "and so she wauls a little help from our purses, don't you see?"

"David Bartholomew!" Norton burst out, "you know as well as I do, that it is no sort of use to try that game. Just go look at the mud; it will take all we could throw into it, and never shew."

"No," said David; "we could clear up a little corner, I think, if we tried."

"You!" cried Norton. "Are you at that game? You turned soft suddenly?"

"Do no harm, that I see," replied David composedly.

"These people aren't your people," said Norton.

"They are your people," said David.

"They are not! I have nothing to do with them, and it is no use – Davie Bartholomew, you know it's no use – to try to help them. Pink is so tender-hearted, she wants to help the whole world; and it's all very well for her to want it; but she can't; and I can't; and you can't."

"But we can help Sarah Staples," Matilda ventured.

"And then you may go on to help somebody else, and then somebody else; and there's no end to it; only there's this end, that you'll always be poor yourself and never be able to do anything you want to do."

Norton was unusually heated, and both his hearers were for a moment silenced.

"You know that's the truth of it, Davie," he went on; "and it's no use to encourage Pink to fancy she can comfort everybody that's in trouble, and warm everybody that is cold, and feed everybody that is hungry, because she just can't do it. You can tell her there is no end to that sort of thing if she once tries it on. Suppose we all went to work at it. Just see where we would be. Where would be Pink's gold watch, and her picture? and where would be her gold bracelet? and where would my greenhouse be? And where would this house be, for that matter? and the furniture in it? and how should we all dress? Your mother wouldn't wear velvet dresses, that you like so much; and mine wouldn't wear that flimsy muslin stuff that she likes so much; and grandmamma's lace shawl would never have been mended, for it never would have been here to get burnt. It's all a lot of nonsense, that's what it is."

"There is law about it, though," David began again gravely.

"Law?" Norton echoed.

"The law of my people."

"O what is it, David?" cried Matilda; while Norton was grumly silent. He did not want to debate David's Jewish law with him. David gave the words very readily.

"'When there is with thee any needy one of one of thy brethren, in one of thy cities, in thy land which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee, thou dost not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy needy brother; for thou dost certainly open thy hand to him, and dost certainly lend him sufficient for his lack which he lacketh.'"

"That says what the people would do – not what they ought to do," said Norton.

"I beg your pardon; it is a strong way of saying, in the Hebrew, what they must do. Listen. 'Thou dost certainly give to him, and thy heart is not sad in thy giving to him, for because of this thing doth Jehovah thy God bless thee in all thy works, and in every putting forth of thine hand; because the needy one doth not cease out of the land, therefore I am commanding thee, saying, Thou dost certainly open thy hand to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy one, in thy land.'"

Matilda was thinking of other words, which she dared not bring forward; being in a part of her Bible which David did not like. Neither was it necessary. Norton had got quite enough, she could see. He was in a state of fume, privately.

"I am going to give one side of the green house to you," he said, turning to Matilda. "Now you have got to think and find out what you will put in it. I shall have the shelves and all ready by the end of the week; and next week, Pink, – next week! – we must put the plants in; because the winter is going on, you know."

The conclave broke up, to go upstairs and look at the new greenhouse. Norton explained his arrangements; the oil-cloth he was going to put on the floor, the rising banks of green shelves, the watering and syringing and warming of the little place; till Matilda almost smelt the geranium leaves before they were there.

"Now, Pink, what will you have on your side?"

"I can't give more than a dollar to it, Norton," said Matilda very regretfully.

"A dollar! A dollar, Pink? A dollar will get you two or three little geraniums. What's to become of the rest of your shelves?"

"I shall have to give them back to you, I'm afraid."

"You've got money, plenty."

"But I can't spend it for plants."

"Because you are going to throw it into the mud, Pink? O no, you'll not do that. I'll give you a catalogue of plants, and you shall look it over; and you will find a dollar won't do much, I can tell you. And then you will see what you want."

He was as good as his word; and Matilda sipped her glass of water and eat her sponge cake at tea time between the pages of a fascinating pamphlet, which with the delights it offered almost took away her breath, and quite took away the taste of the sponge cake. Norton looked over her shoulder now and then, well pleased to see his charm working.

"Yellow carnations?" cried Matilda.

"I don't like them best, though," said Norton. "There, that– La purité – that's fine; and the striped ones, Pink; those double heads, just as full as they can be, and just as sweet as they can be, and brilliant carmine and white – those are what I like."

Matilda drew a long breath and turned a leaf.

"Violets!" she exclaimed.

"Do you like them?"

"Violets? Why, Norton, I don't like any thing better! I don't think I do. Dear little sweet things! they do not cost much?"

"No," said Norton, "they do not cost much; and they don't make much show, neither."

"But they don't take much room."

"No; and you want things that do take room, to fill your shelves. The greenhouse ought to be all one mass of green and bloom all round."

Matilda heaved another sigh and turned another leaf.

"I don't know anything about tuberoses," she said. "Primroses? what are they like? 'A thousand flowers often from one plant!' what are they like, Norton?"

"Like?" said Norton. "I don't know what they are like."

"I'll tell you," said Judy, who as usual was pleasing herself with a cup of strong coffee; "they are like buttercups come to town and grown polished."

"They are not in the least like buttercups!" said Norton.

"That's what I said," replied Judy coolly; "they have left off their country ways, and don't wear yellow dresses."

Matilda thought it was best to take no notice, so with another crumb of sponge cake she turned over to the next flower in the catalogue.

"What are Bouvardias? I don't know anything about them."

"Of course," said Judy. "Not to be expected."

"Do you want to take care of your own flowers yourself, Pink?" inquired Norton; "or do you mean to have me do it?"

"Why, I will do it, I suppose."

"Then you had better leave the Bouvardias to me. They are a little particular about some things."

"Are they handsome?"

"Wait till you see. Splendid! You'll see, when I get them a going. We'll have just a blaze of them."

"A blaze?" said Matilda. "What colour?"

"Flame colour, and scarlet, and white, and splendid crimson."

"Heliotrope. O I like heliotrope," Matilda went on.

"You can have those," said Norton. "They're sweet and easy. And we must have them, of course, on one side or the other. Begonias – those you might have, too."

"Hyacinths I have got," said Matilda.

"Yes, but you will want more, now that you have room for them."

"Azaleas – O azaleas are lovely," said Matilda. "They are showy too; and you want a show, Norton."

"So do you, Pink."

"Well, I like azaleas," said Matilda. "Do they cost much?"

"Not so very. I guess you can have some."

"O what a geranium!" Matilda exclaimed. "'Lady James Vick' – 'seventy-five cents each' – but what a lovely colour, Norton! O I like geraniums next best to roses, I believe."

"You must go to another catalogue for your roses," said Norton.

"That is beautiful! I never saw such a colour. These roses are better yet."

"You can't have roses enough in bloom at once. We want other things to help make up the blaze of colour there ought to be. But that's easy."

Matilda turned the catalogue over and over with a disturbed mind. It seemed to her that to have such a little greenhouse as Norton proposed, full of beauties, would be one of the most enjoyable things that could be. Every new page of the catalogue, every new detail of Norton's plan, tugged at her heart-strings. She wanted to get those plants and flowers. A few delicate tea roses, some crimson blush roses, some pots of delicious purple heliotropes with spicy breath; two or three – or four – great double carnations; bunches of violets, sweetest of all; she wanted these! Then some azaleas, larger of course, to fill up the shelves and make a beautiful show of colour, as Norton desired. Her imagination went over and over the catalogue, always picking these out for her choice; and then imagination took them to the little room upstairs, which was going to be such a lovely little greenhouse, and saw them there and almost smelt their fragrance. It would be so pleasant to take care of them; she fancied herself watering them and dressing them, picking off the dead leaves and tying up the long wreaths of vines, and putting flowers into Mrs. Laval's stem glass for her dressing table. But what use? she had not the money to buy the plants, if she went on with her plans for Sarah's behoof; no counting nor calculating could come to any other conclusion. She thought of it by day and she thought of it by night; and the more she thought, the more her desires grew. Then too, the wish to please Norton was a very serious element in her cogitations. To disappoint him by utterly failing to do all he wished and counted upon from her, was very hard to do and very disagreeable to face. But Sarah? Matilda could not change her line of action, nor divert more than one dollar from the fund saved for her benefit. One dollar, Matilda thought, might be given for flowers; but what would one dollar be worth, with all one side of the little greenhouse to be filled.

It is not easy to tell, how much trouble all this question gave Matilda. She thought it was quite strange and notable, that just when she was trying to accomplish so right a thing as the helping of that poor family in the cellar, this temptation of flowers should come up to make it hard. In one of her windows stood three little pots, in which three hyacinths were already bursting through the brown earth and showing little stout green points of leaf buds which promised nicely for other buds by and by. They had been a delight to Matilda's heart only a week ago; now, it seemed as if that vision of heliotropes and roses and geraniums had somehow swallowed them up.

When she went next to Sunday school, however, and saw Sarah's meek, patient face, Matilda was very much astonished at herself, and not a little ashamed. She sat next Sarah in the class, and could see without seeming to see, how thin her dress was and how limp it was, as if she had not enough petticoats under it to keep her warm. There was a patch too in one place. And Sarah's shawl was a very poor wrap alongside of the well covered shoulders under Matilda's thick coat. "No gloves!" said Matilda to herself, as her eye glanced from her own very handsome and warm ones; "how can she bear it? I wonder how it makes her feel, to see mine? Another time I'll wear an older pair." But the contrast went home to Matilda's heart. Why should she have so many good things, and Sarah so few? and the words David had quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures came back to her.

With an odd feeling as if there were wrong done for which she was somehow chargeable, after the lesson was done and school dismissed she asked Sarah "how she was?" The girl's meek eye brightened a little as she answered that she was well.

"But you are hoarse," said Matilda. "You have got cold."

"O I often do, in the winter time," said Sarah. "I don't think anything of it."

And that slight shawl and thin dress! Matilda's heart gave some painful blows to her conscience.

"I didn't see you at your place the other day," she went on.

"That was Thursday," said Sarah. "No; I was too bad Thursday. I didn't go out."

So she staid at home to nurse her cold, in that cellar room with the mud floor. What sort of comfort could be had there? or what good of nursing? Matilda did not wonder that the street corner was quite as pleasant and nearly as profitable. And the thought of Sarah's gentle pale face as she said those words so went home to her heart, that she was crying half the way home; tears of sorrow and sympathy running down her face, as fast as she wiped them away.