all he knew, and all he didn't know.

The end of which was, that the next day Mrs. Laval called to see Mrs.
Candy.

Now this was particularly what Mrs. Candy had wished to bring about,
and did not know how. She went to the parlour with secret exultation,
and an anxious care to make the visit worth all it could be. No doubt
Mrs. Laval had become convinced by what she had seen and heard, that
Mrs. Candy and her daughter were not just like everybody else, and
concluded them to be fit persons for her acquaintance. But yet the two
confronted each other on unequal ground. Mrs. Candy was handsomely
dressed, no doubt; from her cap to her shoe, everything had cost money
enough; "why can't I throw it on like that?" was her uneasy mental
reflection the minute after she was seated. She felt as if it clung
about her like armour; while her visitor's silks and laces fell about
her as carelessly as a butterfly's wings; as if they were part of
herself indeed. And her speech, when she spoke, it had the same easy
grace--or the carelessness of power; was it that? thought Mrs. Candy.

She had come to ask a favour, Mrs. Laval said. Mrs. Candy had a little
niece, whom her boy Norton had become very fond of. Mrs. Laval had come
to beg for the possession of this little niece as long at least as a
good long visit might be made to extend.

"Three or four days, for instance?" said Mrs. Candy.

"Oh no! that would be nothing. Three or four weeks."

She is very much at her ease! thought Mrs. Candy. Shall I let her have
her will?

Mrs. Candy was in a quandary. She did not like to refuse; she coveted
Mrs. Laval's notice; and this visit of Matilda's might be the means,
perhaps, of securing it. Then, also, she and her daughter had in
contemplation a journey to Philadelphia, and a visit there for their
own part; and it had been a question what they should do with Matilda.
To take her along would make necessary a good deal of fitting up, as a
preliminary; Matilda's wardrobe being in no readiness for such a
journey. Truth to tell, it was not very proper for a visit to Mrs.
Laval either; but Mrs. Candy reflected that it would cost much less on
the whole to leave her than to take her, and be really very much a
saving of trouble. Any loss of discipline, she remembered, could be
quickly made up; and the conclusion of the whole was that she accepted
Mrs. Laval's invitation, with no more than a few minutes of hesitation
during which all these thoughts p