"I'll not check you, Matilda," he said, "unless I see you going to some great extravagance. Go on, and I'll help, and we'll try to make one bad spot at least a little better. Good-bye!"

With a smile and a nod he parted from her at her own door, and Matilda ran up the steps and ran in with a whole little gale of pleasure freshening through her heart.

There was a gale of another sort blowing through the house that evening, and making the household lively. Pleasure was not wanting to it, though it was pleasure of another sort and largely mixed with excitement. The three other young ones were full of plans for the holiday week, reminiscences of the last evening, comparison and discussion of presents, and of people. Matilda in the midst of them listened and was amused, and thought of her gold watch and of Sarah with great secret throbs of delight in her heart.

"So you were the witch, grandmother," said Norton. "I knew it. I was sure of it. What did you do it for?"

"Do what, boy?"

"Take up a witch's trade?"

"I have not laid it down yet."

"No, ma'am; but what put it in your head?"

"I wanted my share of the fun," said the old lady.

"Did you get it, grandmamma?" asked David.

"Yes. A very good share."

"Did you ask everybody such questions as you asked us?" Norton inquired.

"I did not want to know the same thing about all of you."

"No, ma'am. Did you find out a good deal, grandmother?"

But Mrs. Lloyd laughed and declined to answer.

"There is something more I want to find out," she said. "I want to know what makes this little girl look so happy. She doesn't say a word, but her smiles speak for her!"

"Who, Matilda?" said Norton.

"It's easy enough to be smiling," said Judy with slight scorn.

"You might practise it then a little, and do no hurt," remarked Norton.

"Nobody ought to be always smiling," returned Judy. "It's vulgar. And it doesn't mean anything, either."

"Hush, Judy," said her mother.

"What were you smiling about, Matilda?" Mrs. Lloyd asked.

"A great many things I was thinking of, ma'am."

But the little girl's face was so gleeful as she answered, and the smile and the sparkle were so pleasant, that the old lady's curiosity was raised.

"A great many things?" she repeated, "A great many things to be glad of? I should like to know what they are. Come, I will make a bargain with you. I will give you a silver penny for your thoughts; and my silver penny shall be a golden half-eagle."

"For my thoughts, ma'am?" said Matilda, half bewildered; while the other young ones burst out like a pack of hounds after their leader.

"A half-eagle," Mrs. Lloyd repeated, "for all your thoughts; if you will give me them all. I want to know all the things you are feeling so glad about."

"Grandmamma, you'll do as much for me?" cried Judy. "Only, mine will take an eagle to bring them down. They fly high. You might have bought hers, I am confident, for a duck or a pigeon."

"I should like to make a bargain too, grandmother," said Norton; "if you are in that mood."

"Do you think your thoughts are worth anything?" said his grandmother; – "to anybody but yourself?"

"Whose are?" said David.

"Mine are not," said Matilda. She had flushed high, for she saw that the old lady was in earnest; and five dollars was a good deal to her just now.

"Everything is worth what it will fetch, though," said David. "I advise you to close with the offer, Matilda. Five dollars is five dollars, you know."

Matilda's eyes went doubtfully to Mrs. Lloyd.

"Yes," said the old lady smiling. "I will stand to my part of the bargain, if you will stand to yours. But mind, I want all."

"There were so many things," Matilda began; "it would take me a good while to tell them."

"Never mind; we have nothing better to do," said Mrs. Lloyd. "We are at leisure."

"Time's nothing," said Norton, in great amusement.

"At ten dollars or so an hour," added David.

Poor Matilda was in some difficulty. She was furnishing the entertainment of the whole circle; for even Mrs. Bartholomew put down her paper, and Mrs. Laval was smiling, and Mrs. Lloyd was waiting, and the children were all open-eyed. But she had nothing to be ashamed of; and five dollars! —

"I was feeling glad about my watch," she began, "and about my picture – O so very glad! I think they have hardly been out of my mind all day."

"Picture? what picture?" said Judy.

"Hush!" said her grandmother.

"She didn't have any picture!" Judy went on. Matilda looked at her and said nothing.

"Did you?" said Judy. "What was it? Is it in a locket?"

"You can attend to her afterwards, Matilda," said Mrs. Lloyd. "At present you are engaged with me. There is nobody here but you and me."

Matilda sincerely wished it had been so; but she had several curious pairs of ears listening to her.

"Then I was glad, I believe, about all the pleasure of last night, and the Christmas tree, and my other presents; but that wasn't all. To-day has been so very pleasant, and this afternoon particularly."

"This afternoon!" cried Judy. "Why she was away at that horrid Sunday school."

"She don't think it is horrid," said Norton, displeased.

"You don't mean she shall get through what she has to say," remarked David.

"If you would all hold your tongues, there would be some chance," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Try again, Matilda. Was there more? What made the afternoon so pleasant?"

"It always is at that school," said Matilda. "But besides that, this afternoon I believe I got some help for something I want to do; and thinking about that, and about what I want to do, was part of I what was feeling so glad about."

"Well if that isn't a confused statement of facts!" said Judy. "Feeling so glad about, – when?"

"When Mrs. Lloyd asked me what I was smiling at."

"But I am to have your thoughts, you know," said Mrs. Lloyd, with a rather pleasant smile. "You have not told me yet what it is you want to do, the thought of which is so agreeable."

"I did tell it, to the witch last night," said Matilda. "Do you want me to tell it again, now, ma'am?"

"Certainly. You don't think I am a witch, do you?"

On that point Matilda did not give her thoughts; but as desired, she told the story, briefly, of Sarah and her home, and of the reforms proposed in the latter. The attention of her hearers was marked, although most of them indeed had known the matter before.

"What was there in all this to make you so very glad?" inquired Judy.

Matilda hesitated, and could not find what to say.

"Pink has her own ways of being happy you see," Norton remarked.

"She is not the only one, I hope," said David.

"The only one, what?" said Judy sharply. "You are as bad as she is, David, to-night, for talking thick."

"Have we got through, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Lloyd kindly.

"Through all the things that were making me feel glad?" said Matilda. "No, ma'am – not quite." And she stopped and flushed.

"Let us have it," said Mrs. Lloyd. "A bargain is a bargain."

"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda. "I am afraid – I was afraid – perhaps you wouldn't understand me. I was glad of all these things; – and then, I thought, I was so glad that I knew about Jesus; and that I am his child; and that he has given me all these other things to be glad about, and this work to do for Sarah!"

There was a profound silence for a minute or two. Judy was astonished out of speech. David, perhaps, disgusted. Norton was a little proud that Matilda had independence enough to dare to speak out, even if he chafed a little under the subject of her plain speaking. The elder ladies looked at one another with an odd expression in their eyes. When Mrs. Lloyd spoke she went back to the practical question.

"How much money do you expect it will take, to do what you want for these poor people, Matilda?"

"I don't know, ma'am, yet. My teacher will find out and tell me."

"Is it your teacher who has suggested the plan?"

"The plan? – O no, ma'am," said Matilda. "It is my plan. I have been talking him into it."

"Who is he?" Mrs. Lloyd asked.

"Mr. Wharncliffe."

"What Wharncliffe? Is he any connection of General Wharncliffe?"

"His brother," said Norton.

This seemed, Matilda did not know why, to give satisfaction to her elders. Mrs. Lloyd went on with an unbent face.

"How much money have you got, Matilda, to work with?"

"Not a great deal, ma'am; I have saved a little. It won't take such a very great deal to get all I want. It is only common things."

"Saved!" Judy burst out. "Saved! Now we have got at it. This is the secret. This is why we are such good temperance people and think it's wicked to buy liqueur glasses. O yes! we save our money that way, no doubt."

"Judy," said her brother, "I'm ashamed of you."

"No need," said Judy coolly. "Keep it for yourself, next occasion."

"What is all this?" said Mrs. Lloyd.

"Nothing that had better go any further," said Mrs. Laval. "Nothing of any consequence, mother."

"It is of no consequence," said Judy, "because David and Norton made it up."

"And Judy didn't," said Norton.

"Not I; it was your affair," said the young lady. "My connections are not given to saving."

"That is very true indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Bartholomew, bursting out into a laugh; "and you, Judy, least of all your 'connections.'"

"But what is all this?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd, seeing that the faces around her were moved by very various sorts of expression. It had to come out. Judy and Norton told the story between them, with some difficulty. Matilda felt very sorry, and very doubtful of the effect. David looked exceedingly dissatisfied. Mrs. Lloyd listened with unchanged gravity.

"There! you may call it what you like," Judy said in conclusion. "But I like to have things go by their right names."

"It wouldn't be always best for you," said her brother.

"Do you think it is wrong, my dear, to drink wine?" Mrs. Lloyd asked, addressing Matilda.

Matilda did not well know what to answer. She, a child, what business had she to 'think' anything about the right or the wrong of things done by people so much older and wiser than herself? And yet, that did not change the truth, and the truth was what she must answer.

"I have promised not to do it," she said, almost shrinkingly.

"That affects your own drinking or not drinking. Do you think it is wrong for other people?"

Again Matilda hesitated. She would have welcomed almost any interruption of Judy's; but this time Judy kept as still as a mouse. And so did everybody else. Matilda's colour came and went.

"If you please, ma'am," she said at last, "I don't want to say what you will think rude."

"I will not think it rude," said Mrs. Lloyd with a little laugh. "I want to know what notion such a child as you has got in her head. Do you think it is wrong?"

"Yes, ma'am," Matilda-answered softly.

"Hear her!" cried Judy. "She has got an idea that wine is money in another form, and heavy to drink."

Matilda thought that Judy had unwittingly put her very meaning into the words; but she did not say so.

"My dear," said Mrs. Lloyd, "I have drunk wine all my life. It has never hurt me."

Matilda was silent.

"Is that your notion, that it is unwholesome?"

"No, ma'am."

"What then?"

"People take too much of it," said Matilda; "and it ruins them; and if all good people would let it alone, wouldn't it help to make the rest let it alone?"

"Insufferable piggishness!" said Mrs. Bartholomew. "You must excuse me, Zara. I hope you will teach your adopted child better manners, arid get rid of a little of this superb folly."

"I am not so sure about the folly," said Mrs. Laval.

"I am sure about the manners," said Mrs. Lloyd. "She has said nothing but what I have made her say. Now, my dear, you have fulfilled your part of the bargain between us, and I will do my part."

The old lady produced a gold five dollar piece from her purse and put it in Matilda's hand. Then drawing the child kindly towards her, she added,

"And from this time you must call me grandmamma, will you? as the others do; and I will call you my grandchild."

She kissed the astonished Matilda, and the subject was dismissed. At least by the elders; the young people did not so easily let it drop. No sooner were they by themselves than Judy held forth in a long tirade, about "presumption" and "artfulness" and "underhand ways;" waxing warm as she went on; till Norton was provoked to answer, and the debate between them grew hot. Matilda said never a word, nor did David; she kept outwardly very quiet; but an hour after, if anybody could have seen her he would have seen a little figure cuddled down in a corner of her own room and weeping abundant tears. So ended the Christmas Sunday and the Christmas festival.