Part 8 (1/2)
Richmond is not just the sort of Christian you want to be.”
The conclave broke up, having reached a termination of general dissatisfaction common to such conclaves. Maria went to bed grumbling.
Matilda was as usual silent.
The next day, however, found all the family as bright as itself. It was a cold day in January; snow on the ground; a clear, sharp suns.h.i.+ne glittering from white roofs and fence tops and the banks of snow heaped against the fences, and s.h.i.+ning on twigs and branches of the bare trees; coming into houses with its cheery and keen look at everything it found, as if bidding the dark sides of things, and the dusty corners, to change their characters and be light and fair. In the bas.e.m.e.nt the family gathered for breakfast in happy mood, ready to be pleased with each other; so pleasure was the order of the day. Pleasure had a good deal to feed on, too; for after the long breakfast was over and the conversation had adjourned to the parlour, there came the bestowing of presents which Clarissa had brought for her friends. And they were so many and so satisfactory, that the criticisms of the past night were certainly for the present forgotten; Let.i.tia forgave her cousin her daintiness, and Maria overlooked the gold watch. Matilda as usual said little, beyond the civil, needful words, which that little girl always spoke gracefully.
”You are a character, my dear, I see,” her aunt observed, drawing Matilda to her side caressingly.
”What is that, Aunt Candy?”
”Well, I don't know, my dear,” her aunt answered, laughing; ”you put me to define and prove my words, and you bring me into difficulty. I think, however, I shall be safe in saying, that a 'character' is a person who has his own thoughts.”
”But doesn't everybody?”
”Have his own thoughts? No, my dear; the majority have the thoughts of other people.”
”How can they, Aunt Candy?”
”Just by not thinking for themselves. It saves a great deal of trouble.”
”But we all think for ourselves,” said Matilda.
”Do we? Reflect a little. Don't _some_ of you think like other people?
about ways of doing, and acting, and dressing, for instance?”
”Oh yes. But, Aunt Candy, if people think for themselves, _must_ they do unlike other people?”
”If they follow out their thoughts, they must, child.”
”That suits Matilda then,” said her sister Anne.
”Well, it is very nice for a family to have one character in it,” said Mrs. Candy.
”But, Aunt Candy, isn't Clarissa a character too?”
”I don't know, Tilly; I really have not found it out, if she is. Up to this time she always thinks as I think. Now she has given you the tokens of remembrance she has brought home for you; what do you think _I_ have got?”
”O aunt, nothing more!” exclaimed Anne.
”Clarissa and I are two people, if neither of us is a character, however,” said Mrs. Candy. ”Her gifts are not my gifts. But mine shall be different from hers. And if there is more than one character among us, I should like to find it out; and this will do it.”
So saying, she fetched out her purse and presented to each of her sister's children a bank-note for twenty-five dollars.
Mrs. Englefield exclaimed and protested. But Mrs. Candy laid her hand on her sister's mouth, and declared she must please herself in her own way.
”What do you want us to do with this, Aunt Candy?” Matilda inquired in a sort of contemplative wonder.
”Just whatever will please you, will please each of you, best. Only that. That is my condition, girls, if I may call it so. You are not to spend that money for any claims of duty or conscience; but simply in that way which will afford you the highest pleasure.”