"What are you and Miss Redwood doing here?"
"We are getting ready for the business of life," said the housekeeper.
"The minister knows there are different ways of doin" that."
"Just what way are you taking now?" said Mr. Richmond, laughing. "It seems to me, you think the business of life is eating--if I may judge by the smell of the preparation."
"It is time you looked at your cake, Tilly," said Miss Redwood; and she did not offer to help her; so, blushing more and more, Matilda was obliged to open the oven door again, and show that she was acting baker. The eyes of the two older persons met in a way that was pleasant to see.
"What"s here, Tilly?" said the minister, coming nearer and stooping to look in himself.
"Miss Redwood has been teaching me how to make gingerbread. O Miss Redwood, it is beginning to get brown at the end."
"Turn the pans round then. It ain"t done yet."
"No, it isn"t done, for it is not quite up in the middle. There is a sort of hollow place."
"Shut up your oven, child, and it will be all right in a few minutes."
"Then I think this is the night when you are going to stay and take tea with me," said Mr. Richmond. "I promised you a roast apple, I remember.
Are there any more apples that will do for roasting, Miss Redwood?"
"O Mr. Richmond, I do not care for the apple!" Matilda cried.
"But if I don"t have it, you will stay and take tea with me?"
Matilda looked wistful, and hesitated. Her mother would not miss her; but could Maria get the tea without her?--
"And I dare say you want to talk to me about something; isn"t it so?"
the minister continued.
"Yes, Mr. Richmond; I do."
"That settles it. She will stay, Miss Redwood. I shall have some gingerbread, I hope. And when you are ready, Tilly, you can come to me in my room."
The minister quitted the kitchen in good time, for now the cakes were almost done and needed care. A little watchful waiting, and then the plumped up, brown, glossy loaves of gingerbread said to even an inexperienced eye that it was time for them to come out of the oven.
Miss Redwood showed Matilda how to arrange them on a sieve, where they would not get steamy and moist; and Matilda"s eye surveyed them there with very great satisfaction.
"That"s as nice as if I had made it myself," said the housekeeper. "Now don"t you want to get the minister"s tea?"
"What shall I do, Miss Redwood?"
"I thought maybe you"d like to learn how to manage something else. He"s had no dinner to-day--to speak of; and if eatin" ain"t the business of life--which it ain"t, I guess, with him--yet stoppin" eatin" would stop business, he"d find; and I"m goin" to frizzle some beef for his supper, and put an egg in. Now I"ll cut the beef, and you can stir it, if you like."
Matilda liked very much. She watched the careful shaving of the beef in paper-like fragments; then at the housekeeper"s direction she put some b.u.t.ter in a pan on the fire, and when it was hot threw the beef in and stirred it back and forward with a knife, so as not to let it burn, and so as to bring all the shavings of beef in contact with the hot pan bottom, and into the influence of the boiling b.u.t.ter. At the moment of its being done, the housekeeper broke an egg or two into the pan; and then in another moment bade Matilda take it from the fire and turn it out. Meanwhile Miss Redwood had cut bread and made the tea.
"Now you can go and call the minister," she said.
Matilda thought she was having the rarest of pleasant times, as she crossed the little dining-room and the square yard of hall that came next, and went into the study. Fire Was burning in the wide chimney there as usual; the room was very sweet and still; Mr Richmond sat before the fire with a book.
"I thought you were coming to talk to me, Tilly?" he said, stretching out his hand to draw her up to him.
"Miss Redwood was showing me how to do things, Mr. Richmond."
"Then you _do_ want to talk to me?"
"Oh yes, sir. But, Mr. Richmond, tea is ready."
"We"ll eat first then, and talk afterward. What is the talk to be about, Tilly? just to give me an idea."
"It is about--I do not know what is right about something, Mr.
Richmond. I do not know what I ought to do."
"Have you looked in the Bible to find out?"
"No, sir. I didn"t know where to look, Mr. Richmond."
"Have you prayed about it?"
Matilda hesitated, but finally said again, "No."
"That is another thing you can always do. The Lord understands your difficulties better than any one else can, and knows just what answer to give you."
"But--an answer? will He give it always?"
"Always provided you are perfectly willing to take it, whatever it may be; and provided you do your part."
"What is my part?"
"If I sent you to find your way along a road you did not know, where there were guide posts set up; what would be your part to do?"
"To mind the guide posts?"
"Yes, and go on as they bade you. That is not to prevent your asking somebody you meet on the road, if you are going right? Now Miss Redwood has rung her bell, and you and I must obey it."
"But, what are the guide posts, Mr. Richmond?"
"We will see about that after tea. Come."
Matilda gave one wondering thought to the question how Maria and tea would get along without her at home; and then she let all that go, and resolved to enjoy the present while she had it. Certainly it was very pleasant to take tea with Mr. Richmond. He was so very kind, and attentive to her wants; and so amusing in his talk; and the new gingerbread looked so very handsome, piled up in the cake basket; and Miss Redwood was such a variety after Mrs. Candy. Matilda let care go.
And when it came to eating the gingerbread, it was found to be excellent. Mr. Richmond said he wished she would come often and make some for him.
"Do you know there is a meeting of the Band this evening?"
"I had forgotten about it, Mr. Richmond; I have been so busy."
"It is lucky you came to take tea with me, then," said he. "Perhaps you would have forgotten it altogether. What is Maria doing?"
"She is busy at home, Mr. Richmond."