Opportunities Part 20

"Whenever you will let me, ma'am."

"Could you learn to love me a little bit, some day?"

Matilda did not know how to answer. She looked into the handsome dark eyes that were watching her, and with the thought of the secret sympathy between the lady and herself, her own watered.

"I see you will," said Mrs. Laval, kissing her. "Now kiss me."

She sat quite still while Matilda did so; then returned it warmly, and bade Norton take care of her home.

CHAPTER V.

Matilda found her aunt, cousin, and sister gathered in the parlour.

"Well!" said Maria. "I suppose you have had a time."

"A good time?" Mrs. Candy asked. Matilda replied "Yes."

"You stayed late," observed Clarissa. This did not seem to need an answer.

"What have you been doing?" Maria asked.

"Playing."

"You sigh over it, as if there were some melancholy a.s.sociations connected with the fact," said Clarissa.

So there were, taken with the contrast at home. Matilda could not explain that.

"Any company there?" inquired Mrs. Candy.

"No, ma'am."

"You are wonderfully taciturn," said Clarissa. "Do tell us what you have been about, and whether you have enjoyed yourself."

"I enjoyed myself," said Matilda, repressing another sigh.

"Did you bring any message for me?" asked her aunt.

"No, Aunt Candy."

"Did you deliver mine to Mrs. Laval?"

"What, ma'am?"

"My message. Did you deliver it?"

"No, aunt Candy."

"Did you forget it, Matilda?"

"I did not forget it."

Both mother and daughter lifted up their heads at this.

"Why did you not give the message, then?"

Matilda was in sore difficulty. There was nothing she could think of to say. So she said nothing.

"Speak, child!" said her aunt. "Why did you not give my message as I charged you?"

"I did not like to do it, Aunt Candy."

"You did not like to do it! Please to say why you did not like to do it."

It was so impossible to answer, that Matilda took refuge in silence again.

"It would have been civil in Mrs. Laval to have sent her message, whether or no," said Clarissa.

"Go up-stairs, Matilda," said her aunt; "and don't come down again to-night. No, Maria," for Maria rose, muttering that she would go too, "no, you do _not_ go now. Sit down, till the usual time. Go to bed, Matilda. I will talk to you to-morrow."

It was no punishment, the being sent off; though her aunt's words and manner were. In all her little life, till now, Matilda had never known any but gentle and tender treatment. She had not been a child to require other; and though a more decided government might have been good, perhaps, the soft and easy affection in the midst of which she had grown up was far better for her than harshness, which indeed she never deserved. As she went up the stairs to-night, she felt like a person suddenly removed, in the s.p.a.ce of an hour, from the atmosphere of some balmy, tropical clime, to the sharp rigours of the north pole.

She s.h.i.+vered, mentally.

But the effect of the tropics returned when she had closed the door of her room. The treasures of comfort and pleasure stored up that afternoon were not lost; and being a secret treasure, they were not within anybody's power. Matilda kneeled down and gave thanks for it all; then took out her pocket-book and admired it; she would not count the money this evening, the outside was quite enough. She stowed it away in a safe place, and slowly undressed; her heart so full of pleasant things enjoyed and other pleasant things hoped for, that she soon utterly forgot Mrs. Candy, message and all. Sweet visions of what was to be done in Lilac Lane rose before her eyes; what might _not_ be done, between Norton and her, now? and with these came in other visions--of those kisses of Mrs. Laval, which had been such mother's kisses. Matilda stood still to remember and feel them over again.

n.o.body had ever kissed her so, but her mother. And so, in a little warm heart-glow of her own which enveloped everything, like the golden haze on the mountains that evening, Matilda undressed leisurely, and read her Bible, and prayed, and went to sleep. And her waking mood was like the morning light upon the mountains, so clear and quiet.

Maria, however, was in complete contrast. This was not very unusual.

She was crusty, and ironical, and disposed to find fault.

"I wonder how long this is going to last?" she said, in the interval between complaining and fault-finding.

"What?" Matilda asked.

"This state of things. Not going to school, nor learning anything; cooking and scrubbing for Aunt Candy; and you petted and taken up-stairs to be taught, and asked out to tea, and made much of. n.o.body remembers that I am alive."

"Dear Maria, I have been asked out to tea just once."

"You'll be asked again."

"And I am sure people come to see you. Frances Barth was here yesterday; and Sarah Haight and Esther Trembleton two days ago; and Esther asked you to tea too."

"I couldn't go."

"But people remember you are alive. O Maria, they remember you too. Mr.

Richmond don't forget you; and Miss Benton asked you to come to tea with her."