ce."

"Well?" said Maria. "Do lie down! what is the use of getting into bed,
if you are going to sit bolt upright like that and talk lectures? I
don't see what has got into you."

"Maria, it seems to me, now I think of it, that those were the
particular people He did care about."

"Don't you think He cared about good people?" said Maria, indignantly.

"But they were not good at first. Nobody was good at first--till He
made them good. He _said_ He didn't come to the good people; don't you
remember?"

"Well, what do you mean by all that? Are we not to care for anybody but
the people that are not good? A nice life we should have of it?"

"Maria," said her little sister, very thoughtfully, "I wonder what sort
of a life He had?"

"Tilly!" said Maria, rising up in her turn, "what has come to you? What
book have you been reading? I shall tell mamma."

"I have not been reading any book," said Matilda.

"Then lie down and quit talking. How do you expect I am going to sleep?"

"Let us go and see what we can do at the Dows, Maria, to-morrow, won't
you?"

But Maria either did not or would not hear; so the matter passed for
that night. But the next day Matilda brought it up again. Maria found
excuses to put her off. Matilda, however, was not to be put off
permanently; she never forgot; and day after day the subject came up
for discussion, until Maria at last consented.

"I am going because you tease me so, Tilly," she said, as they set
forth from the gate. "Just for that and nothing else. I don't like it a
bit."

"But you promised."

"I didn't."

"To bring in new scholars?"

"I did not promise I would bring the Dow children; and I don't believe
they'll come."

The walk before the children was not long, and yet it almost took them
out of the village. They passed the corner this time without turning,
keeping the road, which was indeed part of the great high road which
took Shadywalk in its way, as it took many another village. The houses
in this direction soon began to scatter further apart from each other.
They were houses of more pretension, too, with grounds and gardens and
fruit trees about them; and built in styles that were notable, if not
according to any particular rule. Soon the ground began to descend
sharply towards the bed of a brook, which brawled along with impetuous
waters towards a mill somewhere out of sight. It was a full, fine
stream, mimicking the rapids and eddies of larger streams, with all