Part 40 (1/2)
”You do not know how to make them.”
”Aunt Erminia told me. But I shall want your help, Tilly, for the fish has to be carefully picked all to pieces; and if we leave a bit as big as a sixpence, there'll be a row.”
”But the fish isn't soaked, Maria.”
”It is in hot water on the stove now. It will be done by morning.”
Matilda sighed again deeply, and knelt down before the table where her Bible was open. ”Buying up opportunities” floated through her head; with ”works, and love, and service, and faith, and patience, and works”* [*Alford's translation.]--”Christ pleased not Himself”--and the little girl's head went down upon the open page. How much love she must have, to meet all the needs for it! to do all the works, have all the patience, buy up all the opportunities! Tilly's one prayer was that she might be full of love, first to G.o.d and then to everybody.
Such prayers are apt to be answered; and the next morning saw her go through all the details of its affairs with a quiet patience and readiness which must have had a deep spring somewhere. She helped Maria in the tedious picking out of the fish; she roasted her cheeks in frying the b.a.l.l.s, while her sister was making porridge; she attended to the coffee; and she met her aunt and cousin at breakfast with an unruffled quiet sweetness of temper. It was just the drop of oil needed to keep things going smoothly; for Maria was tired and out of humour, and Mrs. Candy disposed to be ill-pleased with both the girls for their being out at the Band meeting. She did not approve of the whole thing, she said. However, the suns.h.i.+ne scattered the clouds away. And when, after a busy morning and a pretty well got-up dinner, Matilda asked leave to go out and take a walk, she had her reward. Mrs. Candy gave permission.
”Won't you come too, Maria?” she asked, when they went to their own room.
”There's no fun in walking,” Maria answered, disconsolately.
”I am going to Lilac Lane.”
”I hope you don't think there is any fun in _that_.”
”But, Maria!----”
”Well, what?”
”I think there is something a great deal better than fun.”
”You may have it all then, for me.”
”Maria,” said her little sister, gently, ”I wish you wouldn't mind.
Mamma will get well by and by, and this will be all over; and we are getting along so nicely. Aunt Candy was quite pleased with the dinner.”
”There's another dinner to get to-morrow,” said Maria; ”and I don't know what you mean by this being 'all over' when mamma gets well. What difference will her getting well make? She will help, to be sure; but we should have the same things to do--just the same.”
Matilda had not reckoned on that, for she looked sober a minute or two.
”Well, Maria,” she said then, clearing up, ”I don't care. If Jesus has given us this to do, you know, I _like_ to do it; because He has given it to us to do.”
Maria turned away impatiently.
”Maria,” said her little sister, drawing nearer and speaking solemnly, ”do you intend to ask Mr. Richmond to baptize you the next time he has the baptismal service?”
”If I do,” said Maria, ”_you_ need not trouble yourself about it.”
And Matilda thought she had better let the subject and her sister both alone for the present. She had got herself ready, and now taking her Bible she went out. It was but a little way to the corner. There she turned in the opposite direction from the one which would have taken her to church, and crossed the main street. In that direction, farther on, lay the way to Lilac Lane; but at the other corner of the street Matilda found an interruption. Somebody stopped her, whom she knew the next instant to be Norton Laval.
”Why, it is Matilda Englefield!” he said. ”You are just the one I want to see.”
”Am I?” said Matilda.
”I should think so. Come along; our house lies that way; don't you recollect?”