The House in Town Part 44

"Judy," said Matilda suddenly, "look here. Does your grandmother often wear this?"

"She'll be sure to want it now," said Judy, "if she never did before."

"It doesn't help the matter either," said David. "Putting off discovery is no comfort. I always think it is best to be out with a thing and have done with it."

"No," said Matilda. "Yes;--that isn't what I mean; but I mean, will Mrs. Lloyd want to wear this now for a few days--four or five?"

"She won't wear it before our party," said Judy. "There's nothing going on or coming off before that. O I wish our party was in Egypt."

"Then don't," said Matilda. "Look here,--listen. I think perhaps,--I don't promise, you know, for I am not sure, but I think _perhaps_ I can mend this."

"You can't, my girl," said David, "unless you are a witch."

"You might as well mend the house!" said Judy impatiently. "It isn't like darning stockings, I can tell you."

"I know how to darn stockings," said Matilda; "and I do not mean to mend this that way. But I can mend some lace; and I think--perhaps--I can this. If you will let me, I'll try."

"How come you to think you can?" David asked. "I should say it was impossible, to anything but a fairy."

"I have been taught," said Matilda. "I did not like to learn, but I am very glad now I did. Do you like to have me try?"

"It is very kind of you," said David; "but I can't think you can manage it."

"Of course she can't!" said Judy contemptuously.

"If I only had the right thread," said Matilda, re-examining the material she had to deal with.

"What must it be?" David inquired.

"Look," said Matilda. "Very, very, _very_ fine, to match this."

"Where can it be had? You are sure you will not make matters worse by doing any thing with it? Though I don't see how they could be worse, that's a fact. I'll get the thread."

So it was arranged between them, without reference to Judy. Matilda carried the scarf to her room; and Judy ungraciously and ungracefully let her go without a word.

"You are not very civil, Judy," said her brother.

"Civil, to that creature!"

"Civil to anybody," said David; "and she is a very well-behaved creature, as you call her."

"She was well-behaved at Candello's the other day, wasn't she?"

"Perhaps she was, after her fas.h.i.+on. Come, Judy, you have tried her to-night, and she has borne it as you wouldn't have borne it; or I either."

"She knew better than not to bear it," said Judy insolently.

"I wish you had known better than to give it her to bear. She was not obliged to bear it, either. Aunt Zara would not take it very well, if she was to hear it."

Judy only pouted, and then went on with a little more crying for the matter of the shawl. David gave up his part of the business.

Except looking for the thread. That he did faithfully; but he did not know where to go to find the article and of course did not find it.

What he brought to Matilda might as well have been a cable, for all the use she could make of it in the premises. There was no more to do but to tell Mrs. Laval and get her help; and this was the course finally agreed upon between Matilda and David; Judy was not consulted.

Mrs. Laval heard the story very calmly; and immediately promised to get the thread, which she did. Matilda could not also obtain from her an absolute promise of secrecy. Mrs. Laval reserved that; only a.s.suring Matilda that she would do no harm, and that she would say nothing at least until it should be seen whether or no Matilda had succeeded in the repair of the scarf.

And now for days thereafter Matilda was most of the time shut up in her room, with the door locked. It was necessary to keep out Judy; the work called for Matilda's whole and best attention. It was not an easy or a small undertaking. If anybody could have looked in through the closed door those days, he would have seen a little figure seated on a low foot-cus.h.i.+on, with a magnificent lace drapery lying over her lap and falling to the floor. On a chair at her side were her thread and needles and scissors; and very delicately and slowly Matilda's fingers were busy trying to weave again the lost meshes of the exquisite lace.

They worked and worked, hour after hour, before she could be certain whether she was going to succeed; and the blood flushed into Matilda's cheeks with the excitement and the intense application. At last, Sat.u.r.day afternoon, enough progress was made to let the little girl see that, as she said to herself, "it would do;" and she put the scarf away that afternoon feeling that she was all ready for Sunday to come now, and could enjoy it without a drawback of any sort.

And so she did--even Dr. Broadman and his parti-coloured church.

Matilda's whole heart had turned back to its old course; that course which looks to Jesus all the way. Sunlight lies all along that way, as surely as one's face is turned to the sun; so Matilda felt very happy.

She hoped, too, that she was gaining in the goodwill of her adopted cousins; David certainly had spoken and looked civilly and pleasantly again; and Matilda's heart to-day was without a cloud.

Norton declined to go with her to Sunday school, however, and she went alone. No stranger now, she took her place in the cla.s.s as one at home; and all the business and talk of the hour was delightful to her. Sarah was there of course; after the school services were ended Matilda seized her opportunity.

"Whereabouts do you live, Sarah?"

Matilda had been turning over various vague thoughts in her mind, compounded from experiences of Lilac lane and the snowy corner of Fourteenth street; her question was not without a purpose. But Sarah answered generally, that it was not very far off.

"Where is it?" said Matilda. "I should like, if I can, and maybe I can, I should like to come and see you."

"It is a poor place," said Sarah. "I don't think you would like to come into it."

"But you live there," said the other child.

"Yes"--said Sarah uneasily; "I live there when I ain't somewheres else; and I'm that mostly."

"Where is that 'somewhere else'? I'll come to see you there, if I can."

"You _have_ seen me there," said the street-sweeper. "'Most days I'm there."

"I have been past that corner a good many times, Sarah, when I couldn't see you anywhere."

"'Cos the streets was clean. There warn't no use for my broom then.

n.o.body'd ha' wanted it, or me. I'd ha' been took up, maybe."

"What do you do _then_, Sarah?"

"Some days I does nothing; some days I gets something to sell, and then I does that."

"But I would like to know where you live."

"You wouldn't like it, I guess, if you saw it. Best not," said Sarah.

"They wouldn't let you come to such a place, and they hadn't ought to.

I'd like to see you at my crossing," she added with a smile as she moved off. Matilda, quite lost in wonderment, stood looking after her as she went slowly down the aisle. Her clothes were scarcely whole, yet put on with an evident attempt at tidiness; her bonnet was not a bonnet, but the unshapely and discoloured remains of what had once had the distinction. Her dress was scarcely clean; yet as evidently there was an effort to be as neat as circ.u.mstances permitted. What sort of a home could it be, where so nice a girl as Matilda believed this one was, could reach no more actual and outward nicety in her appearance?

"You have made Sarah Staples' acquaintance, I see;" Mr. Wharncliffe's voice broke her meditations.