, Maria. Aunt Candy is always quiet."

"I wish she wouldn't, then. I hate people who are always quiet. I would
rather they would flare out now and then. It's safer."

"For what? _Safer_, Maria?"

"Do go along and get your soda!" exclaimed Maria. "Do you think it will
be safe to be late with breakfast?"

Maria was so evidently out of order this morning, that her sister
thought the best way was to let her alone; only she asked, "Aren't you
well, Maria?" and got a sharp answer; then she went out.

It was a delicious spring morning. The air stirred in her face its soft
and glad breaths of sweetness; the sunlight was the very essence of
promise; the village and the green trees, now out in leaf, shone and
basked in the fair day. It was better than breakfast, to be out in the
air. Matilda went round the corner, into Butternut Street, and made for
Mr. Sample's grocery store, every step being a delight. Why could not
the inside world be as pleasant as the outside? Matilda was musing and
wishing, when just before she reached Mr. Sample's door, she saw what
made her forget everything else; even the mischievous little boy who
belonged to Mrs. Dow. What was he doing here in Butternut Street?
Matilda's steps slackened. The boy knew her, for he looked and then
grinned, and then bringing a finger alongside of his nose in a peculiar
and mysterious expressiveness, he repeated his old words--

"Ain't you green?"

"I suppose so," said Matilda. "I dare say I am. What then? Green is not
the worst colour."

The boy looked at her, a little confounded.

"If you would come to Sunday-school," Matilda went on, "_you_ would be
a better colour than you are--by and by."

"What colour be I?" said the boy.

"You'd be a better colour," said Matilda. "Just come and see."

"I ain't green," the boy remonstrated.

Matilda passed on, went into Mr. Sample's and got her soda. She had a
few cents of change. A thought came into her head. Peeping out, she saw
that Mrs. Dow's boy was still lingering where she had left him.
Immediately Matilda requested to have the worth of those cents in
sugared-almonds; and with her little packages went into the street
again. The boy eyed her.

"What is your name?" said Matilda.

"Hain't got none."

"Yes, you have. What does your mother call you at home?"

"She calls me--the worst of all her plagues," said the fellow, grinning.

"No, no; but when she calls you from somewhere--what does she call you?"

"She