"Why?"

"Because! To ask me such a question as that. Aunt Candy's present!"

"Didn't you promise?"

"I did not promise to give my money any more than I usually give. I put a penny in every Sunday."

"Then I don't see how you are going to help the Fund," said Matilda. "I don't see why you promised, either."

"I promised, because I wanted to join the Band; and I am going to do everything I ought to do. I think I am just as good as you, Matilda."

Matilda let the matter drop.

It did not appear what _she_ was going to do with her money. She always said she had not decided. Only, one day soon after the last meeting recorded, Matilda was seen in one of the small bookstores of Shadywalk.

There was not reading enough in the village to support a bookstore proper; so the books crept into one corner of the apothecaries' shops, with supplies of stationery to form a connecting link between them and the toilet articles on the opposite counter. To one of these modest retreats of literature, Matilda came this day and requested to look at Bibles. She chose one and paid for it; but she took a long time to make her choice; was excessively particular about the goodness of the binding and the clearness of the type; detecting an incipient loose leaf in one that was given her to examine; and finally going away perfectly satisfied. She said nothing about it at home; but of course Maria saw the new purchase immediately.

"So you have been to get a Bible!" she said. "Did you get it with part of your twenty-five dollars?"

"Yes. I had no other money, Maria, to get it with."

"I think you are very foolish. What do you want a Bible for?"

"I had none."

"You could always read mine."

"Not always. And Maria, you know, if we are to follow Jesus, we want to know very well, indeed, how He went and what He did and what He wants us to do; and we cannot know all that without a _great deal_ of study."

"I have studying enough to do already, for my part," said Maria.

"But you must study this."

"I haven't a minute of time, Matilda--not a minute."

"Then how will you know what to do?"

"Just as well as you will, perhaps. I've got my map of South America to do all over, from the beginning."

"And all the rest of the cla.s.s?"

"Yes."

"Then you are no worse off than the others. And Ailie Swan reads her Bible, I know."

"I think I am just as good as Ailie Swan," said Maria, with a toss of her head.

"But, Maria," said Maria's little sister, leaning her elbows on the table and looking earnestly up at her.

"Well, what?"

"Is that the right way to talk?"

"Why not?"

"I don't see what Ailie has to do with your being good."

"Nor I, I am sure," said Maria. "It was you brought her up."

"Because, if she has time, I thought you might have time."

"Well, I haven't time," said Maria. "It is as much as I can do, to study my lesson for Sunday-School."

"Then, Maria, how _can_ you know how to be good?"

"It is no part of goodness to go preaching to other people, I would have you know," said Maria.

Matilda turned over the leaves of her new Bible lovingly, and said no more. But her sister failing her, she was all the more driven to seek the little meetings in the corner of the Sunday-School-room; and they grew to be more and more pleasant. At home nothing seemed to be right.

Mrs. Englefield was not like herself. Anne and Let.i.tia were gloomy and silent. The air was heavy. Even Clarissa's beautiful eyes, when they were slowly lifted up to look at somebody, according to her custom, seemed cold and distant as they were not at first. Clarissa visited several sick people and carried them nourishing things; but she looked calm disapproval when Maria proclaimed that Tilly had been all up Lilac Lane to look for a stray Sunday-School scholar. Mrs. Englefield laughed and did not interfere.

"I would never let a child of mine go there alone," said Mrs. Candy.

"There is no danger in Shadywalk," said Mrs. Englefield.

"You will be sorry for it, sister."

"Well; I am sorry for most things, sooner or later," said Mrs.

Englefield.

So weeks went by; until it came to be the end of winter, and something of spring was already stealing into the sunlight and softening the air; that wonderful nameless "something," which is nothing but a far-off kiss from Spring's fingers. One Sunday Mrs. Englefield had gone to bed with a headache; and hastening away from the dinner-table, Matilda went off to her appointment. Mr. Ulshoeffer had been propitious; he let the little girls have the key on the inside of the schoolroom door; and an hour before it was time for the cla.s.ses of the school to be gathering, the three friends met at the gate and went in. They always sat in a far-off corner of one of the transepts, to be as cozy as possible. They were all punctual to-day, Ailie having the key of the door.

"Girls, don't you get confused sometimes, with the things you hear people say?" she asked, as she unlocked the door. "I do; and then sometimes I get real worried."

"So do I get worried!" Mary Edwards a.s.sented. "And I don't know what to say--that's the worst of it."

"Now only to-day," Ailie went on, as they walked up the matted aisle with a delicious sense of being free and alone and confidential, "I heard some one say it was no use for children to be Christians; he said they didn't know their own minds, and don't know what they want, and by and by it will all be smoke. And when I hear such things, it affects me differently. Sometimes I get mad; and then sometimes it takes the strength all out of me."

"But if we have the right sort of strength," said Matilda, "people can't take it from us, Ailie."

"Well, mine seems to go," said Ailie. "And then I feel bad."

"We know what we want," said Mary, "if we are children."

"We know our own minds," said Matilda. "We _know_ we do. It is no matter what people say."

"I wish they wouldn't say it," said Ailie. "Or I wish I needn't hear it. But it is good to come here and read, isn't it? And I think our talk helps us; don't you?"

"It helps me," said Mary Edwards. "I've got n.o.body at home to talk to."

"Let us begin, girls, or we shall not have time," said Matilda. "It's the fourteenth chapter."