"

"No, ma'am--I believe not."

"Then whom have you made your promise to? Is it a religious scruple
that some one has taught you?"

"I have promised to do all I could for helping temperance work,"
Matilda said at last.

She was answered with a little ringing laugh, not unkindly but amused;
and then her friend said gravely--

"Your taking a glass of cordial in this house would not affect anything
or anybody, little one. It would do _me_ no harm. I drink a glass of
wine every day with my dinner. I shall go on doing it just the same. It
will not make a bit of difference to me, whether you take your cordial
or not."

But Matilda looked at the lady, and did not look at her glass.

"Do you think it will?" said the lady, laughing.

"No, ma'am."

"Then your promise to help temperance work does not touch the cordial."

"No ma'am, but----"

"But?--what 'but'?"

"It touches me."

"Does it?" said the lady. "That is odd. You think a promise is a
promise. Here is your sister taking her cordial; she has not made the
same promise, I suppose?"

Maria and Matilda glanced at each other.

"She has?" cried the lady. "Yet you see she does not think as you do
about it."

The sisters did not look into each other's eyes again. Their friend
watched them both.

"I should like to know whom you have made such a promise to," she said
coaxingly to Matilda. "Somebody that you love well enough to make you
keep it. Won't you tell me? It is not your mother, you said. To whom
did you make that promise, dear?"

Matilda hesitated and looked up into the lady's face again.

"I promised--the Lord Jesus," she said.

"Good patience! she's religious!" the lady exclaimed, with a change
coming over her face; Matilda could not tell what it was, only it did
not look like displeasure. But she was graver than before, and she
pressed the cordial no more; and at parting she told Matilda she must
certainly come and see her again, and she should always have a bunch of
flowers to pay her. So the girls went home, saying nothing at all to
each other by the way.

CHAPTER VII.

It was tea-time at home by the time they got there. All during the
meal, Maria held forth upon the adventures of the afternoon, especially
the last.

"Mamma, those people are somebody," she concluded.

"I hope I am somebody," said Mrs. Englefield.

"Oh but you know what I mean, mamma."

"I am not clear that I do."

"And I, Maria,--am I not somebody?" her aun