Trading. Warner Susan
gloves!" said Matilda to herself, as her eye glanced from her own very handsome and warm ones; "how can she bear it? I wonder how it makes her feel, to see mine? Another time I'll wear an older pair." But the contrast went home to Matilda's heart. Why should she have so many good things, and Sarah so few? and the words David had quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures came back to her.
With an odd feeling as if there were wrong done for which she was somehow chargeable, after the lesson was done and school dismissed she asked Sarah "how she was?" The girl's meek eye brightened a little as she answered that she was well.
"But you are hoarse," said Matilda. "You have got cold."
"O I often do, in the winter time," said Sarah. "I don't think anything of it."
And that slight shawl and thin dress! Matilda's heart gave some painful blows to her conscience.
"I didn't see you at your place the other day," she went on.
"That was Thursday," said Sarah. "No; I was too bad Thursday. I didn't go out."
So she staid at home to nurse her cold, in that cellar room with the mud floor. What sort of comfort could be had there? or what good of nursing? Matilda did not wonder that the street corner was quite as pleasant and nearly as profitable. And the thought of Sarah's gentle pale face as she said those words so went home to her heart, that she was crying half the way home; tears of sorrow and sympathy running down her face, as fast as she wiped them away.
That same evening, at tea-time, Norton asked if she had made up her list of plants for the greenhouse? Matilda said no.
"We shall want them, now, Pink. By Wednesday I shall have the staging ready; and the sooner we get it filled the better."
"O but, dear Norton," said Matilda, "I am very sorry to disappoint you; but I cannot take the money."
"Can't take what money?"
"The money to buy those plants. I would like them; but I cannot."
"But you were making your list," said Norton.
"No, I wasn't. I was only thinking what I would like to have."
"And you are not going to come into the greenhouse at all?"
That was more than Matilda had counted upon; the tears started to her eyes; but she only said, —
"I cannot get the plants, Norton;" and she said it steadily.
"You are going into that ridiculous charitable concern?"
Matilda was beyond answering just then; she kept silence.
"Let me into your greenhouse, Norton," said Judy.
"Yes; fine work you would make there," Norton replied.
"Indeed I would. I'll fill my shelves with just the finest things we can get; camellias, if you like; and the newest geraniums, and everything."
"You wouldn't take care of them if you had them."
"Well, you would," said Judy; "and it comes to the same thing."
"Pink," said Norton, "I must have my shelves full; and I can't do it all. If you won't come into the greenhouse, I shall let Judy come."
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