in the shop among the shavings. Wixham, the
son-in-law, was not prosperous, and the children were not so well
dressed that the sawdust would damage their clothes.

The youngest of Matchin's four children was our acquaintance Miss Maud,
as she called herself, though she was christened Matilda. When Mrs.
Matchin was asked, after that ceremony, "Who she was named for?" she
said, "Nobody in partic'lar. I call her Matildy because it's a pretty
name, and goes well with Jurildy, my oldest gal." She had evolved that
dreadful appellation out of her own mind. It had done no special harm,
however, as Miss Jurildy had rechristened herself Poguy at a very
tender age, in a praiseworthy attempt to say "Rogue," and the delighted
parents had never called her anything else. Thousands of comely damsels
all over this broad land suffer under names as revolting, punished
through life, by the stupidity of parental love, for a slip of the
tongue in the cradle. Matilda got off easily in the matter of
nicknames, being called Mattie until she was pretty well grown, and
then having changed her name suddenly to Maud, for reasons to be given
hereafter.

She was a hearty, blowzy little girl. Her father delighted in her
coarse vigor and energy. She was not a pretty child, and had not a
particle of coquetry in her, apparently; she liked to play with the
boys when they would allow her, and never presumed upon her girlhood
for any favors in their rough sport; and good-natured as she was, she
was able to defend herself on occasion with tongue and fists. She was
so full of life and strength that, when she had no playing to do, she
took pleasure in helping her mother about her work. It warmed Saul
Matchin's heart to see the stout little figure sweeping or scrubbing.
She went to school but did not "learn enough to hurt her," as her
father said; and he used to think that here, at least, would be one
child who would be a comfort to his age. In fancy he saw her, in a neat
print dress and white cap, wielding a broom in one of those fine houses
he had helped to build, or coming home to keep house for him when her
mother should fail.

But one day her fate came to her in the shape of a new girl, who sat
near her on the school-bench. It was a slender, pasty young person, an
inch taller and a year or two older than Mattie, with yellow ringlets,
and more pale-blue ribbons on her white dress than poor Mattie had ever
seen before. She was a clean, cold, pale, and sel