aren't boring for cents."

"But that little girl, Norton,--all of them,--they hadn't much on!"

"No," said Norton; "I suppose not. It's no use to look and think about
it, Pink. They are accustomed to it; it isn't what it would be to you.
Don't think about it. You'll be always seeing sights in New York. The
best way is _not_ to see."

But Matilda did think about it "Not what it would be to her"! why, it
would kill _her_, very quickly. Of course it must be not exactly so to
these children, since they did not die; but what was it to them? Not
warmth and comfort; not a pleasant spending of time for pleasure.

"Norton," she began again just as they were getting out of the car, "it
seems to me that if those children sweep the streets, it is right to
give them pay for it. They are trying to earn something."

"You can't," said Norton. "There are too many of them. You cannot be
putting your hand in your pocket for pennies all the while, and
stopping under the heels of the horses. I do once in a while give them
something. You can't be doing it always."

CHAPTER VII.

Norton asked to be allowed to go with the shopping party, which his
mother refused. To Matilda's disappointment, she took Miss Judy
instead. Matilda would rather have had any other one of the household.
However, nothing could spoil the pleasure of driving to Stewart's. To
know it so cold, and yet feel so comfortable; to see how the dust flew
in whirlwinds and the wind caught people and staggered them, and yet
not to be touched by a breath; to see how the foot travellers had to
fight with both wind and dust, and to feel at the same time the easy
security, the safe remove from everything so ugly and disagreeable,
which they themselves enjoyed behind the glass of their Clarence; it
was a very pleasant experience. The other two did not seem to enjoy it;
they were accustomed to the sensation, or it had ceased to be one for
them. Matilda was in a state of delight every foot of the way. _This_
was what she had come to, this safety and ease and elegance and
immunity. She was higher than the street or the street-goers, by just
so much as the height of the axletree of the carriage. How about those
little dust covered street-sweepers?

The thought of them jarred. There was nothing between _them_ and the
roughest of the rough. How came they to be there, at the street
corners, and Matilda here, behind these clear plates of glass which
enclosed the front of the c