She never forgot what she saw there, nor the story of lonely and desolate life which it told. Two cups and saucers, one standing in a back corner, unused and full of cobwebs, the other cracked, soiled, grimy, and full of flies. Something had been in it; what, Matilda could not examine. On the bare shelf lay a half loaf of bread, pretty dry, with a knife alongside. A plate of broken meat, also full of flies, and looking, Matilda thought, fit for the flies alone, was there; a cup half full of salt; an empty vinegar cruet, an old shawl, ditto hood; a pitcher with no water; an old muslin cap, half soiled; a faded bit of ribband, and a morsel of cheese flanked by a bitten piece of gingerbread. Matilda came back sick at heart.

"Where do you sleep, Mrs. Eldridge? and who makes your bed? Or can you make it?"

"Sleep?" said the old woman. "Nobody cares. I sleep in yonder."

Matilda looked, doubted, finally crossed the room again and pushed a little inwards the door Mrs. Eldridge had looked at. She came back quickly. So close, so ill-smelling, so miserable to her nice senses, the room within was; with its huddled up bundle of dirty coverlets, and the soiled bed under them on the floor. Not much of a bed either, and not much else in the room. A great burden was gathering on Matilda's heart and shoulders; the burden of the wants of her neighbour, and her own responsibilities.

The afternoon was now waning; what was to be done? Matilda tried to think that somebody would come in and do what she herself was very unwilling to do; but conscience reminded her that it was very unlikely. Did that neglected cupboard give much promise of kind attendance or faithful supply? or that rusty stove look like neighbourly care? But then Matilda pleaded to herself that she had her own work, and not much time; and that such a dirty place was very unfit for her nice little hands.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Eldridge," she said, lingering. "I'll come and see you again."

"'Taint a pleasant place to come to," said the old woman. "'Taint a pleasant place fur nobody. And nobody comes to it. Nobody comes."

"I'll come, though," said Matilda. She could do so much as that, she thought. "Good-bye. I must go home."

She left the old woman and the house, and began her walk. The lane, she observed, looked as if other houses and other people in it might be as ill off as those she had been visiting. "She is not worse than a number of others, I dare say," thought Matilda. "I could not visit them all, and I could not certainly take care of them all. It really makes little difference on the whole, whether or no I kindle Mrs. Eldridge's fire. It is delightful to get away from the place."

And then Matilda tried to think that in making her visit and reading to the old woman, she had really done a good deal; made a good afternoon's work. Nobody else had done even so much as that; not even anybody in all Shadywalk. The walk home was quite pleasant, under the soothing influence of these thoughts. Nevertheless, a little secret point of uneasiness remained at Matilda's heart. She did not stop to look at it, until she and Maria went up to bed. Then, as usual, while Maria got ready for sleep, Matilda knelt down before the table where her open Bible lay under the lamp; and there conscience met her.

And when conscience meets any one, it is the same thing as to say that the Lord meets him.

That was what Matilda felt this night. For her reading fell upon the story of the woman who brought the precious ointment for the head of Jesus, and poured it upon His feet also; whom the Lord, when she was chidden, commended; saying, "Ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but Me ye have not always. She hath done what she could."

Had Matilda? And these poor whom we have always with us, she recollected that in another place the Lord in a sort identifies Himself with them, saying that what is done to His poor is done to Himself. Mrs. Eldridge was not indeed one of the Lord's children, but that did not help the matter. "For perhaps she will be," Matilda said to herself. And what if the Lord had sent Matilda there now to be His messenger? The success of the message might depend on the behaviour of the messenger. But above all it pressed upon Matilda's heart that she had not done what she could; and that in declining to make a fire in Mrs. Eldridge's rusty little stove and in shrinking from waiting upon her, she had lost a chance of waiting upon, perhaps, the Lord himself.

"And it was such a good chance," thought Matilda; "such a good afternoon; and there is no telling when I may get another. It was such a good opportunity. And I lost it."

The pain of a lost opportunity was something she had not counted upon. It pressed hard, and was not easy to get rid of. The disagreeableness of the place and the service faded into nothing before this pain. Matilda went to bed with a sore heart, resolving to watch for the very first chance to do what she had neglected to do this afternoon.

But Lilac Lane looked very disagreeable to her thoughts the next day, and the sharp effect of the Bible words had faded somewhat.

"Maria," she said as they were washing up the dishes after breakfast, – "I wish you would help me in something."

"What?"

"Do you call yourself a member of the Band yet?"

"Of course I do. What do you ask for?"

"I did not know," said Matilda, sighing. "You don't do the things promised in the covenant. I didn't know but you had given it all up."

"What don't I do?" inquired Maria, fiercely.

"Don't be angry, please, Maria. I do not mean to make you angry."

"What don't I do, Matilda?"

"You know, the covenant says, 'we stand ready to do His will.' He has commanded that we should be baptized and join the Church, and that we should follow Him – you know how, Maria. And you don't seem to like to do it."

"Is that all?"

"That is all about that."

"Then, if you will mind your affairs, Matilda, I will try and mind mine. And I will be much obliged to you."

"Then you will not help me?"

"Help in what?"

"There is a poor woman, Maria," said her little sister, lowering her voice, "a poor old woman, who has no one to take care of her, and hardly anything to live upon. She lives – you can't think how she lives! – in the most miserable little house, dirty and all; and without fire or anybody to sweep her room, or make her bed, or make a cup of tea for her. If you would help me, we might do something to make her comfortable."

"Where is she?"

"In Lilac Lane."

"Have you been to see her?"

"Yes."

"What do you think Aunt Candy would say if she knew it?"

"Will you help me, Maria?"

"Help make her bed and sweep her room?"

"Yes, and get her a cup of tea sometimes, and a clean supper."

"A clean supper!" exclaimed Maria. "Well! Yes, I guess I'll help you, when I have nothing of my own to do. When the dinner gets itself, and the house stays swept and dusted, and Aunt Candy lives without cakes for breakfast."

Matilda was silent.

"But I'll tell you what, Matilda," said her sister, "Aunt Candy will never let you do this sort of work. You may as well give it up peaceably, and not worry yourself nor anybody else. She'll never let you go into Lilac Lane – not to speak of getting dirty people's dinners. You may as well quit it."

"Don't tell her, Maria."

"You'll tell her yourself, first thing," said Maria, scornfully.

Matilda had to go up-stairs soon to her reading in her aunt's room. It was even more unintelligible, the reading, this time than before; because Matilda's head was running so busily on something else.

"You do not read well, child," said her aunt.

"No, ma'am. I do not understand it."

"But it is about what you have just done, Matilda. It is about the ordinance of baptism, and the life proper to a person who has been received into the Church. You ought to understand that."

"I do understand it, in the Bible."

"What does the Bible say about it?"

"It says, – 'My sheep hear My voice: and I know them, and they follow Me.'"

"What do you mean by 'following Him'?"

"Why, living the sort of life He lived, and doing what He tells us to do."

"How do you propose to live the sort of life He lived? It's almost blasphemy."

"Why, no, aunt Candy; He tells us to do it."

"Do what?"

"Live the sort of life He lived. He says we must follow Him."

"Well, how, for instance? In what?"

"You know how He lived," said Matilda. "He helped people, and He taught people, and He cured people; He was always doing good to people, and trying to make them good. Especially poor, miserable people, that nobody cared for."

"Trying to make them good!" said Mrs. Candy. "As if His omnipotence could not have made them good in a minute."

"Then why didn't He?" said Matilda, simply. "It sounds as if He was trying to make them good."

"Well, child – it's no use talking; I wish I had had the training of you earlier," said Mrs. Candy. "You are so prepossessed with ideas that border on fanaticism, that it is a hard matter to get you into right habits of thinking. Come here and take your darning."

So Matilda did. The darning was not wearisome at all to-day, so busy her thoughts were with the question of Mrs. Eldridge; how much or how little Matilda ought to do for her, how much she could, and what were the best arrangements to be set on foot. So intent she was on these questions, that the darning was done with the greatest patience, and therefore with the greatest success. Mrs. Candy and her daughter even looked at each other and smiled over the demure, thoughtful little face of the workwoman; and Matilda got praise for her work.

She had made up her mind meanwhile that "she hath done what she could" – should be her rule to go by. So as the after noon was fair, and Mrs. Candy and her daughter both gone to make a visit at some miles' distance, Matilda sallied forth.

"Did she give you leave?" Maria asked, as she saw her sister getting ready.

"No."

"She wants you to ask leave always."

"I never used to do that," said Matilda. Her voice choked before she could finish her sentence.

"You will get into trouble."

"One trouble is better than another, though," said Matilda; and she went.

She went first to Mr. Sample's, and asked how much a pound of tea cost.

"The last I sent your aunt," said Mr. Sample, "was one fifty a pound; and worth it. Don't she approve the flavour?"

"I believe so. But I want a little of another kind, Mr. Sample – if you have any that is good, and not so high."

"I have an excellent Oolong here for a dollar. Will you try that?"

"Please give me a quarter of a pound."

"She will like it," said Mr. Sample, weighing the quantity and putting it up; "it really has as much body as the other sort, and I think it is very nearly as good. The other is fifty cents a pound more. Tell Mrs. Candy I can serve her with this if she prefers."

"I want a loaf of bread too, if you please."

"Baking failed?" said Mr. Sample. "Here, Jem, give this little girl a loaf."

He himself went to attend another customer, so Matilda paid for her purchases without any more questions being asked her. She went to another store for a little butter, and there also laid in a few herrings; and then, with a full basket and a light heart, took the way to Lilac Lane.