ilda hid her work and opened, to let in Judy. She was a good
deal surprised, for she had not been so honoured before. Judith and her
brother were very cool and distant since the purchase of the liqueur
stand.

"What do you keep your door locked for?" was the young lady's
salutation now, while her eyes roved over all the furniture and filling
of Matilda's apartment.

"I was busy."

"Didn't you want anybody to come in?"

"Not without my knowing it."

"What were you doing then?"

"If I had wanted everybody to know, I should not have shut myself up."

"No, I suppose not. I suppose you want me out of the way, too. Well, I
am not going."

"I do not want you to go, Judy, if you like to stay. That is, if you
will be good."

"Good?" said the other, her eyes snapping. "What do you call good?"

"Everybody knows what good means, don't they?" said Matilda.

"_I_ don't," said Judy. "I have my way of being good--that's all.
Everybody has his own way. What is yours?"

"But there is only one real way."

"Ain't there, though!" exclaimed Judy. "I'll shew you a dozen."

"They can't be all _good_, Judy."

"Who's to say they are not?"

"Why, the Bible." The minute she had said it the colour flushed to
Matilda's face. But Judy went on with the greatest coolness.

"Your Bible, or my Bible?"

"There isn't but one Bible, Judy, that I know."

"Yes, there is!" said the young lady fiercely. "There's our Bible,
that's the true. There's yours, that's nothing, that you dare bind up
with it."

"They both say the same thing," said Matilda.

"They DON'T!" said the girl, sitting upright, and her eyes darted fire.
"They don't say a word alike; don't you dare say it."

"Why Judy, what the one says is good, the other says is good; there is
no difference in that. Did you ever read the New Testament?"

"No! and I don't want to; nor the other either. But I didn't come to
talk about that."

"What do _you_ call goodness, then?"

"Goodness?" said Judy, relapsing into comparatively harmless mischief;
"goodness? It's a sweet apple--and I hate sweet apples."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean _that_. Goody folks are stupid. Aren't they, though!"

"But then, what is your notion of _real_ goodness?"

"I don't believe there is such a thing. Come! you don't either."

"I don't believe in goodness?"

"Goodness!" repeated Judy impatiently, "you needn't stare. I don't
choose to be stared at. You know it as well as I. When you are what you