Trading Part 31

"Don't know anybody without I see 'em. I ain't called to guess who you be, as I know. Come in, if you want to, and tell your errand. Is it me or the minister you're after?"

"Miss Redwood, it's Matilda Laval. And I'm so glad to see you!" said Matilda, waiving further recognition and throwing her arms round the housekeeper's neck. "O I'm so glad to see you! Is Mr. Richmond at home?"

"Tilly Englefield!" exclaimed the housekeeper in her turn. "Wherever did the child come from? Mr. Richmond?--no, he ain't to home yet, but he will be directly. Come in, child, and take off your things. Who's this other one?"

"My cousin David Bartholomew, Miss Redwood. O David, come in! Don't go, till Mr. Richmond comes."

"Yes, come right in," said Miss Redwood heartily. "You're just in time for tea; for the minister's been out as usual all the afternoon; he had to ride to Suffield, and he ain't home yet. Come right in here."

She drew Matilda, and David followed, into the little dining room, where the lamp shone and the tea table stood looking very hospitable.

David made some proposition of going back to the hotel and Norton; but Matilda was very urgent that he should not, and Miss Redwood very positive on the same subject; and to Matilda's surprise David made no great opposition. He sat down quietly enough. Meanwhile the housekeeper took off Matilda's wrappings and examined her with her eyes.

"La! it _does_ look natural to see you!" she broke out. "But you ain't so little as you was; and, my!--but I suppose it's New York."

"What's New York?" inquired Matilda laughing.

"Well, 'taint so easy to tell. I don't know myself. But it's all over you, from the hair of your head down to the soles of your boots. You ain't the same you was."

"Yes, I am, Miss Redwood; just the same!"

"La, child, you don't _feel_ that you've growed, do you? Folks grow in'ardly and out'ardly; and they change, too, in'ardly and out'ardly; and it's other folks that see it, not them."

"But how do you think I'm changed, Miss Redwood? I am sure you're mistaken."

The housekeeper gave another benevolent, keen look at her, smiling a little, and then went off into her pantry without answering.

"It's all right I made gingerbread to-day," she said, coming out with a beautiful loaf of that article. "Have you had any dinner? I'll be bound you'd like some beef and eggs. Wait a bit, and you shall have it. Mr.

Richmond will be all ready for it too, after his ride. I reckon you hain't much to do with handling of spiders now?" This with a sidelong glance at Matilda.

"No, Miss Redwood; I haven't time for such things."

"How do ye expect to keep house one o' these days, if you don't know how?"

"That's a great way off," said Matilda smiling.

"Just as it happens," said the housekeeper. "You're eleven or twelve this summer; which is it? and you won't be any wiser in the kitchen just by growing older in the parlour."

"I know some things now, Miss Redwood."

"La, child, knowledge ain't all; it's practice; and you ain't in the way to practise much, I can see. That's the fas.h.i.+on now-a-days; young heads filled full and clever, maybe; and hands as empty and useless as ever hands kin be. Now I don't believe, for my part, that our hands was given us to do nothin'."

"O no, nor I," said Matilda.

"Well, then, what be your hands learning? See if I'm wrong."

Matilda cast about how to answer, for in truth her hands had got no new skill in the past months, although the old skill had come in play very conveniently. While she hesitated, came the welcome sound of the opening and closing front door. Mr. Richmond was returned. His steps went however first upstairs, and then came down and went into the study. Miss Redwood had disappeared and was getting her beef ready in the kitchen. Matilda could wait no longer. Taking David's hand and gently persuading him to allow of her leading, she went to the study door and knocked.

Mr. Richmond had just made the fire blaze up; so they had light to see each other by. David stood by and watched the greeting; it was very glad and affectionate, he saw, on both sides, with a certain tender confidence that impressed him. He was surprised also to see that Mr.

Richmond was so young a man and so handsome a man; and when the brilliant eyes were turned on himself he was quite susceptible to their fascination. Matilda lost no time.

"David Bartholomew, Mr. Richmond; one of my new cousins, you know. And Mr. Richmond,--David knows about the Messiah in the Old Testament, and he wants to know if the Messiah is Jesus; and so I wanted him to see you, because you could tell him; and so I got him to come with me."

If David's shyness was at all disturbed by this speech, it was entirely soothed again by Mr. Richmond's reception of it, and of him. The genial, frank clasp of his hand, the kindly, free glance of the blue eyes, quite won David, as it was apt to win everybody; and in a minute more he found himself sitting at his ease in this strange house, perfectly contented to be then, and interested to watch Matilda's intercourse with her old friend and her pleasure in it. There was time for but little, however, before Miss Redwood's activity had got the "beef and eggs" and all the rest of the tea-table in a state of readiness, and her call summoned them into the other room. David made a little demur about staying, instantly overruled both by Mr. Richmond and Matilda, and he sat down with the rest. And if he said little, the other three tongues were busy enough.

"And how do you like New York?" inquired the housekeeper. Matilda's answer was very unqualified.

"'Tain't no better a place than this, is it?" the lady asked rather defiantly.

"It is a larger place, Miss Redwood," said the minister.

"Ain't Shadywalk big enough for a little mite of a thing like her?"

"I don't know," said the minister. "'Big enough' depends upon what she wants, or what anybody wants. I knew a man once who said he had seen everything in the world there was to be seen, and he was quite at a loss what to do with himself. You perceive the world was not 'big enough' for him. And another man once wrote, 'My _mind_ to me a kingdom is.' Difference of taste, you see."

"That first fellow thought his head was only made to set his eyes in, I s'pose," said the housekeeper dryly.

"Seemed to be all the use he had for it," said the minister.

"But that other man," said Matilda,--"was he contented with himself all alone, and wanted nothing else?"

"I hope not," said Mr. Richmond smiling. "That's a new view of the case. Your king David hit the truth more surely," he went on addressing David, "when he said, 'The Lord is the portion of my inheritance.'"

David's eye brightened; but then he said,

"I have read the words, but I never understood exactly what he meant."

"Your people, you remember, on taking possession of the promised land, had it divided to them by lot; each tribe and family took its share as it was portioned out to them by Joshua."

"Yes, I know," David answered.

"So from that time each family had its own inalienable lands, which were the inheritance of that family; its portion and riches; for the Hebrews were not in those days a commercial people."

David a.s.sented, looking a little surprised.

"What should a man mean, who declared, disregarding all this, that his portion and inheritance was the Lord himself?"

The boy's keen, intelligent eyes looked deep into the intent blue ones regarding him.

"Sir, I do not know," he said at length. "Was it, that he expected the Highest would give him greater possessions?"

"Notice, he says not his inheritance is _from_ the Lord, but is the Lord himself."

"I don't understand it," said David.

"In another place, when he was nearly done with earthly possessions, he says again, 'My flesh and my heart faileth; but G.o.d is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.' It is an inheritance that exists beyond time, you see."

"I don't understand it, sir," David repeated.

"And in that sixteenth psalm he goes on to declare his content in his portion, in that it is not of earth. 'The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.' There is a word in the New Testament that explains it," Mr. Richmond went on, looking keenly at David; "a word of one who was in the same case; and he says of the children of G.o.d, 'And if children, then heirs; heirs of G.o.d, and joint heirs with Messiah.'"