very disagreeable,
but she did it. After the potatoes and turnips were ready for the pot,
Maria demanded her help about other things; she must clean the knives,
and set the table, and prepare the celery and rub the apples; while
Maria kept up the fire, and attended to the cookery. Matilda did one
thing after another; her weary little feet travelled out and in, from
one room to the other room, and got things in order for dinner in both
places.

It was a pretty satisfactory dinner, on the whole. The mutton was well
cooked and the vegetables were not bad, Mrs. Candy said; but Matilda
thought with dismay of the after dinner dishes. However, dinner gives
courage sometimes; and both she and Maria were stronger-hearted when
they rose from table than when they had sat down. Dishes, and pots, and
kettles, and knives, and endless details beside, were in course of time
got rid of; and then Matilda put on her hat and cloak, and set forth on
an errand she had been meditating.

CHAPTER X.

It was a soft pleasant day late in March. The snow had all gone for the
present. Doubtless it might come back again; no one could tell; in
Shadywalk snow was not an unknown visitor even in April; but for the
present no such reminder of winter was anywhere to be seen. The air was
still and gentle; even the brown tree stems looked softer and less bare
than a few weeks ago, though no bursting buds yet were there to make
any real change. The note of a bird might be heard now and then;
Matilda had twice seen the glorious colour of a blue bird's wings as
they spread themselves in the light. It was quite refreshing to get out
of the house and the kitchen work, and smell the fresh, pure air, and
see the sky, and feel that all the world was not between four walls
anywhere. Matilda went softly along, enjoying. At the corner she
turned, and walked up Butternut street--so called, probably, in honour
of some former tree of that family, for not a shoot of one was known in
the street now. On and on she went till her church was passed, and then
turned down the little lane which led to the parsonage. The snow all
gone, it was looking pretty here. On one side the old church, the new
lecture-room on the other, and between them the avenue of elms, arching
their branches over the way and making a vista, at the end of which was
the brown door of the parsonage. Always that was a pleasant view to
Matilda, for she associated the brown door with a great many thin