"Where is everybody else? how come you to be all alone?"
"They have gone ahead, sliding on the ice."
"And you do not practise sliding?"
"I am always afraid I shall fall down."
"The best way is not to be afraid; and then you don"t fall down. See; no! hold fast. I shall not let you slip!"
And the gentleman and Matilda slid along the street for half a block.
"How do you like that?"
"Very well, Mr. Richmond, with you holding me."
"It doesn"t give you courage, eh? Well, we will walk on soberly together. I didn"t see you stand when Maria did last night?"
"Mr. Richmond, I did not know just what it all meant; and so I sat still."
"You did not know just what it all meant?"
"No, sir."
"Then you were perfectly right to sit still. But that means that I did not speak so that you could understand me? Was it so?"
"I did not understand----" said Matilda.
"It comes to that, I suppose. It is my fault. Well, I shall remember and be very careful what I say the next time. I will speak so that you will understand. But in that case, I want you to do one thing for me, Tilly; will you?"
"If I can, Mr. Richmond."
"Do you think I would ask something you could not do?"
Matilda looked up to the blue eyes again; they were fastened upon her gravely, and she hesitated.
"Mr. Richmond--I don"t know. You might."
"I hope not," he said, smiling. "I will try not. You won"t promise me?"
"If I can I will, Mr. Richmond."
"I am only going to ask you, when you hear what I have to say next time, if you understand it, will you do what you think you ought to do?"
There fell a silence upon that. Mr. Richmond"s firm step on the icy ground and Matilda"s light footfall pa.s.sed by house after house, and still the little one"s tongue seemed to be tied. They turned the corner, and went their way along Matilda"s own street, where the light of afternoon was now fading, and the western sky was throwing a reflection of its own. Past the butcher"s shop, and the post-office, and house after house; and still Matilda was silent, and her conductor did not speak, until they stopped before the little gate leading to the house, which was placed somewhat back from the road. At the gate Mr.
Richmond stood still.
"What about my question, Matilda?" he said, without loosing his hold of the little hand which had rested so willingly in his all the way.
"Aren"t you coming in, Mr. Richmond?"
"Not to-night. What about my question?"
"Mr. Richmond," said the child, slowly,--"I do not always do the things I ought to do."
"No; I know you do not. But will you do _that_ thing, which you will think you ought to do, when you have heard me, and understood what I say, the next time the Band has a meeting?"
Matilda stood silent, her hand still in Mr. Richmond"s.
"What"s the matter?"
"Perhaps I shall not want to do it," she said, looking up frankly.
"I ask you to do it all the same."
Matilda did not move, and now her face showed great perplexity.
"Well?" said Mr. Richmond, smiling at last.
"Perhaps I _cannot_ do it, Mr. Richmond?"
"Then, if you think you cannot do it, will you come and tell me?"
Matilda hesitated and pondered and hesitated.
"Do you wish it very much, Mr. Richmond?" she said, looking up appealingly into his face.
"I do wish it very much."
"Then I will!" said Matilda, with a sigh.
He nodded, shook her hand, and turned away with quick steps. Matilda went in and climbed the stairs to the room she and Maria shared together.
"What were you talking to Mr. Richmond so long about?" said Maria.
"I wasn"t talking to Mr. Richmond. He was talking to me."
"What"s the difference? But I wish he would talk to Ailie Swan; she wants it, I know. That girl is too much!"
"What has she done?"
"Oh, _you_ don"t know; she isn"t in your set. _I_ know. She"s just disagreeable. I think people ought to be civil, if they are ever so good."
"I thought good people were civil always."
"Shows you don"t know much."
"Isn"t Ailie Swan civil?"
"I do not call it civility. What do you think, Tilly? I asked her if my South America wasn"t good? and she said she thought it was not. Isn"t that civility?"