"That is one thing I wouldn't do. If I
was better than my neighbours, I'd let them be the ones to find it out."

Matilda was silent till they reached home.

"Where have you been, Matilda?" said her aunt, opening the parlour door.

"To see Miss Redwood, aunt Candy."

"Ask me, next time, before going anywhere. Here has Maria had
everything to do since five hours ago,--all alone."

Matilda shut her lips firmly,--if her head took a more upright set on
her shoulders she did not know it,--and went up-stairs after her sister.

"How is mamma, Maria?" she asked, when she got there.

"I don't know. Just the same."

The little girl sighed.

"What is to be for breakfast?"

"Fish balls."

"You do not know how to make them."

"Aunt Erminia told me. But I shall want your help, Tilly, for the fish
has to be carefully picked all to pieces; and if we leave a bit as big
as a sixpence, there'll be a row."

"But the fish isn't soaked, Maria."

"It is in hot water on the stove now. It will be done by morning."

Matilda sighed again deeply, and knelt down before the table where her
Bible was open. "Buying up opportunities" floated through her head;
with "works, and love, and service, and faith, and patience, and
works"* [*Alford's translation.]--"Christ pleased not Himself"--and the
little girl's head went down upon the open page. How much love she must
have, to meet all the needs for it! to do all the works, have all the
patience, buy up all the opportunities! Tilly's one prayer was that she
might be full of love, first to God and then to everybody.

Such prayers are apt to be answered; and the next morning saw her go
through all the details of its affairs with a quiet patience and
readiness which must have had a deep spring somewhere. She helped Maria
in the tedious picking out of the fish; she roasted her cheeks in
frying the balls, while her sister was making porridge; she attended to
the coffee; and she met her aunt and cousin at breakfast with an
unruffled quiet sweetness of temper. It was just the drop of oil needed
to keep things going smoothly; for Maria was tired and out of humour,
and Mrs. Candy disposed to be ill-pleased with both the girls for their
being out at the Band meeting. She did not approve of the whole thing,
she said. However, the sunshine scattered the clouds away. And when,
after a busy morning and a pretty well got-up dinner, Matilda asked
leave to go out and take a walk, she had her reward. Mrs.