"I have been busy about something else, mamma," Maria said.

"That braiding. Yes. But there is always 'something else.' There are other things that ought to begin at home besides charity. Do _you_ belong to this a.s.sociation, Matilda?"

"No, mamma," came in a low voice from the child.

"Why not?"

The answer was not ready.

"Have you joined it, Clarissa?" her mother asked.

"Yes, mamma."

"And what have you pledged yourself to do?"

"I think nothing, mamma, that I was not properly pledged to before."

"Such as what?"

"I gave my name for the visiting and helping sick and poor people; for the singing in the school;--I believe that is all, mamma."

"I shall not let you go where there is sickness," said Mrs Candy. "When did you pledge yourself to that ever?"

"When I took the vows of the Church, mamma," Clarissa said, with a little hesitation, "I suppose I engaged to do some of these things."

"Some of them; I have no objection to your singing as much as you like; but as to your going where there are fevers and bad air, and all that sort of thing, I should not be willing at all."

"There will not be much occasion for it in Shadywalk," said Mrs.

Englefield. "We have few poor people; there are not many who have not friends of their own to take care of them."

"Anne and Let.i.tia, you have nothing to do with all this?" their aunt asked.

"I have enough to do as it is, Aunt Candy," said Anne.

"And I don't like the new sorts of work, Aunt Erminia," said Let.i.tia.

"I know you wanted to stand up with us this evening, though," said Maria. "You felt bad because you didn't."

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 amus.e.m.e.nt still in stories and jests, mingled with profanity and tobacco. Tilly was always glad to have pa.s.sed 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 princ.i.p.al streets of the village. Matilda herself lived in the other princ.i.p.al 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. Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed; 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 gra.s.s 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?"

"Is Mr. Richmond at home?" Matilda asked.

"Well, I s'pose he is. I hain't hearn him nor seen him go out since noon. Do ye want to see him, or is it a message?--ye want to see him, eh. Well, I s'pose he'll see you--if he ain't too busy--and I don't know when he gets time for all he has to do, but he gets it; so I s'pose I had ought to be satisfied. _I_ don't, I know; but I s'pose men and women is different. Some folks would say that's a reason why men was created the first and the best; but I don't think so myself. And here I am an old goose, a-talkin' to little Tilly Englefield about philosophy, instead o' lettin' her into the minister's room. Well, come in, dear; round this way; the minister has taken a notion to keep that door shut up because of the cold."

Miss Redwood had not been idle during the utterance of this speech.

First she had been shaking the snow from the door mat on which Matilda's feet had left it; then she seized a broom and brushed the white ma.s.ses from the hall carpet out to the piazza, and even off the painted boards of that. Finally came in, shut the door, and led Matilda to the back of the hall, where it turned, and two doors, indeed three, confronted each other across a yard of intervening s.p.a.ce. The housekeeper knocked at the one which led into the front room; then set it open for Matilda to go in, and closed it after her.

A pleasant room that was, though nothing in the world could be more unadorned. Deal shelves all around were filled with books; a table or two were piled with them; one, before the fire, was filled as well with papers and writing materials. This fronted, however, a real blazing fire, the very thing Miss Redwood had once been so uneasy about; in a wide open chimney-place, where two great old-fashioned bra.s.s andirons with round heads held a generous load of oak and hickory sticks, softly snapping and blazing. The sweet smell of the place struck Matilda's sense, almost before she saw the minister. It was a pure, quiet, scented atmosphere that the room held; where comfort and study seemed to lurk in the very folds of the chintz window-curtains, and to shine in the firelight, and certainly seemed to fill Mr. Richmond's arm-chair even when he was not in it. He rose out of it now to meet his little visitor, and laid study on the table. Of one sort.

"All's well at home, Tilly?" he asked, as he put her into his own chair.

"Yes, sir."

"And you do not come to me with any message but to see me yourself?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's nice. Now while you are talking to me, I will roast you an apple."

Matilda looked on with great curiosity and as great a sense of relief, while Mr. Richmond took out of a cupboard a plate of apples, chose a fine one with a good bit of stem, tied a long pack-thread to this, and then hung the apple by a loop at the other end of the string, to a hook in the woodwork over the fireplace. The apple, suspended in front of the blazing fire, began a succession of swift revolutions; first in one direction and then in the other, as the string twisted or untwisted.

"Did you ever roast an apple so?"

"No, Mr. Richmond."

"It is the best way in the world--when you haven't got any other."

"We haven't got that way at our house," said Matilda; "for we have no fires; nothing but stoves."

"You speak as if you thought fires were the best plan of the two."

"Oh, I do, Mr. Richmond! I do _not_ like stoves at all. They're so close."

"I always thought stoves were rather close," said Mr. Richmond. "Now what did you come to see me roast apples for this afternoon? Did you come to keep your promise?"

"Yes, sir," Matilda answered, rather faintly.