Trading Part 33

"I don't go into the kitchen now-a-days."

"Thought not. Nor you don't never put on a frock fit to make gingerbread in, now do you?"

"I don't think I do."

"Well, what are your gowns good for, then?"

"Good for?" said Matilda; "why, they are good for other things, Miss Redwood."

"I don't think a gown is worth much that is too good to work in; it is just a bag to pack so many hours of your life in, and lose 'em."

"Lose them how?"

"By not doin' anythin', child! What's life if it ain't busy?"

"But don't you have company dresses, Miss Redwood?"

"I don't let company hinder _my_ work much," said Miss Redwood, as she shoved a pan of biscuits into the oven of the stove. "What do you think 'ud become of the minister?"

"O yes!" said Matilda laughing; "but then, you see, I haven't got any minister to take care of."

"Maybe you will, some day," said Miss Redwood with a kind of grim smile; "and if you don't know how, what'll become of you? or of him either?"

It seemed a very funny and very unlikely supposition to Matilda. "I don't think I shall ever have anybody to take care of but mamma and Norton," she said smiling.

"I s'pose they've money enough to make it easy," said Miss Redwood.

"But somehow--that don't seem to me livin'."

"What, Miss Redwood?"

"That sort o' way o' goin' on;--havin' money do all for you and you do nothin'. Havin' it do all for your friends too. _I_ don't think life's life, without you have somebody to work for; somebody that wants you and that can't get along without you."

"O _they_ want me," said Matilda.

"Maybe; but that ain't what I mean. 'Tain't dependin' on you for their breakfast in the morning and their tea at night, and their comfort all day. You have folks to do that. Now I wouldn't give much for life, if I couldn't make nice light biscuits for somebody and see that their coffee was right and the beefsteak just as it had oughter be, and all that. I used to have some one to do it for," said Miss Redwood, with something of pathetic intonation in her voice;--"and now," she added cheerily, "it's a blessin' to do it for the minister."

"I should think it was," said Matilda.

"There is another friend one may always work for,"--said the voice of the person they were speaking of. Both his hearers started. The door of the dining-room was a little ajar and he had quietly pushed it open and come in. "Miss Redwood, how about breakfast? I have a sudden summons to go to Suffield."

"Again!" said the housekeeper. "Well, Mr. Richmond--in two minutes. La, it's never safe to speak of you; you're sure to know it."

"I didn't hear anything very bad," said the minister smiling.

Norton had come to breakfast. David made his appearance looking pale and heavy-eyed, as if he had sat up half the night. Mr. Richmond looked at him attentively but made no remark; only to both the boys he was exceedingly kind and gracious; engaging them in talk that could not fail to interest them; so that it was a gay breakfast. David was not gay, indeed; that was rarely a characteristic of his; but he was gentle, and gentlemanly, and very attentive to his host. After prayers Mr. Richmond went out into the hall and came back in his overcoat.

"My boy," he said, laying his hand affectionately on David's shoulder, "I should like to sit down with you and go on with our reading; I meant to give the first of the morning to it; but I have a call of duty that takes me away. I shall see you at dinner or this evening; meanwhile, this is your home. Take care of him, Matilda."

So Mr. Richmond went away. Norton had received, and refused, a similar invitation. David did not refuse it.

"No," said Norton, "I must be nearer those flower-beds. Come along, Pink; we'll go and make our calculations. Davy, you'll come and see Briery Bank? it's jolly, this morning; and this afternoon we'll go take a drive."

"I should like to do a great many things," said Matilda; "only there'll never be time for them all. However, we'll go first and see about the tulips and hyacinths."

David went with them so far and looked at the place; but after that he disappeared. Matilda and Norton had a delightful day, overseeing the garden work and arranging for more garden work to be done; then lunching together at the hotel, for so he persuaded her, and going on with their operations afterwards. At tea time Matilda went back to the parsonage alone; Norton said he was tired and sleepy and did not want to hear reading, but he would come to breakfast again.

David was not pale but flushed now, with excited eyes. All Mr.

Richmond's talk and manner at table were kindly and soothing as possible; and Matilda could see that he liked David and that David liked him; but the look of the latter puzzled her. It came from disturbance so much deeper than her little head had ever known.

Immediately after tea the study lamp was lit and the books were opened.

"What have you read to-day, Master Bartholomew?" Mr. Richmond asked.

"Just those two chapters," said the boy.

"Of Luke?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Richmond, those people, Zechariah and Simeon and the rest, they were Jews?"

"Yes."

"And they kept the law of Moses?"

"Faithfully."

"And--they thought that Jesus was the Promised One?"

"They did not _think_--they knew, by the teaching of the Spirit of G.o.d."

"But," said David, "the writer of this did not wish to discredit the law of Moses?"

"Not at all. Let us go on with our his story."

The reading began again and went on steadily for some hours. As before, David wanted to verify everything by references to the prophets. His voice trembled sometimes; but he kept as close to business as possible.

The first chapters of Matthew excited him very much, with their declarations of things done "that the scriptures might be fulfilled;"

and the sermon on the mount seemed to stagger the boy. He was silent a while when it had come to his turn to read; and at last looking up, he said,

"If people took _this_ for a rule of life, everything in the world would have to be turned round?"

"Precisely," said Mr. Richmond. "And so the word says--'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are pa.s.sed away; behold, all things are become new.'"

"Do you think anybody really lives like this?"

"O yes," said Mr. Richmond.

"I never saw anybody who did," said David; "nor anything like it;--unless," he added looking up, "it is Matilda there."

Matilda started and flushed. Mr. Richmond's eyes fell on her with a very moved pleasure in them. Neither spoke, and David went on with the reading. He was greatly struck again, in another way, with the quotation from Isaiah in the thirteenth chapter, and its application; indeed with the whole chapter. But when they came to the talk with the woman of Samaria, David stopped short.