their life and fury given to its smaller current. The waters looked
black and wintry in contrast with the white snow of the shores. A
foot-bridge spanned the brook, alongside of another bridge for
carriages; and just beyond, the black walls of a ruin showed where
another fine mill had once stood. That mill had been burnt. It was an
old story; the girls did not so much as think about it now. Matilda's
glance had gone the other way, where the stream rushed along from under
the bridge and hurried down a winding glen, bordered by a road that
seemed well traversed. A house could be seen down the glen, just where
the road turned in company with the brook and was lost to view.

"I wonder who lives down there?" said Matilda.

"I don't know. Yes, I do, too; but I have forgotten."

"I wonder if they come to church."

"I don't know _that;_ and I shall not go to ask them. Why, Matilda, you
never cared before whether people went to church."

"Don't you care now?" was Matilda's rejoinder.

"No! I don't care. I don't know those people. They may go to fifty
churches, for aught I can tell."

"But, Maria,"--said her little sister.

"What?"

"I do not understand you."

"Very likely. _That_ isn't strange."

"But, Maria,--you promised the other night--O Maria, what things you
promised!"

"What then?" said Maria. "What do you mean? What did I promise?"

"You promised you would be a servant of Christ," Matilda said,
anxiously.

"Well, what if I did?" said Maria. "Of course I did; what then. Am I to
find out whether everybody in Shadywalk goes to church, because I
promised that? It is not my business."

"Whose business is it?"

"It is Mr. Richmond's business and Mr. Everett's business; and Mr.
Schoenflocker's business. I don't see what makes it mine."

"Then you ought not to have said that you would bring new scholars to
the school, I think, if you did not mean to do it; and whom do you mean
to carry the message to, Maria? You said you would carry the message."

"I don't know what carrying the message means," said Maria.

Matilda let the question drop, and they went on their way in silence;
rising now by another steep ascent on the other side of the brook,
having crossed the bridge. The hill was steep enough to give their
lungs play without talking. At the top of the hill the road forked; one
branch turned off southwards; the high road turned east; the sisters
followed this. A little way further, and both slackened th