and everything in it. Stoves were there in variety;
chains, and brooms, and coal-skuttles; coffee-mills, and axes, and
lamps; tin pails, and earthen batter jars; screws, and nails, and
hinges, and locks; and a telegraph operator was at work in a corner.
Several customers were there too; Matilda had to wait.

"It is odd now," said Norton. "I suppose, if I wanted to spend money
here, I should buy everything else in the world _but_ a tea-kettle.
That's what it is to be a girl."

"Nonsense!" said Matilda, and the set of her head was inimitable.
Norton laughed.

"That's what it is to be a Pink," he said. "I forgot. I don't believe
there is another girl in town wants a tea-kettle but you. What else do
you want, Pink?"

"A great deal," said Matilda; "but I can't get all I want."

"You don't want an axe, for instance; nor a coffee-mill; nor a tin
pail, nor an iron chain, nor a dipper; nor screws, nor tacks; nor a
lamp, do you? nor a box of matches"----

"Oh yes, Norton! Oh yes, that is just what I do want; a box of matches.
I never should have thought of it."

"How about stoves, Pink? Here are plenty."

"She has a stove. Don't be ridiculous, Norton."

And Mr. Forshew being just then at leisure, Matilda purchased a little
tin tea-kettle, and came out with it in triumph.

"Now is that all?" said Norton. "How about the bread and butter?
Perhaps it has given out."

"No, I think not. I guess there is enough. Perhaps we had better take
another loaf of bread, though. We shall pass the baker's on our way."

"Have you got money enough for every thing you want, Pink? does your
aunt give you whatever you ask for?"

"Oh, I never ask her for anything," said Matilda.

"Take it without asking?"

"I do not ask, and she does not give me, Norton. But once she did, when
she first came; she gave me, each of us, twenty-five dollars. I have
got that, all that is left of it."

"How much is left of it?"

"Why, I don't know exactly. I spent four dollars for something else;
then eighty-five cents yesterday; and a dollar just, to-day. That
makes"----

"Five eighty-five," said Norton. "And that out of twenty-five, leaves
nineteen fifteen."

"I've got that, then," said Matilda.

"And no hope of more? That won't do, Pink. Nineteen dollars won't last
for ever at this rate. Here's the baker's."

The bread Norton paid for and carried off, and the two stepped along
briskly to Lilac Lane.

Matilda was very glad privately that she h