do you want to prepare me for, Aunt Erminia?"
"For your position, my dear, as a member of the Church. That is not a child's position. You have placed yourself in it; and now the question is how to enable you to maintain it properly. I cannot treat you as a child any longer."
Matilda wondered very much how she was to be treated. However, silence seemed the wisest plan at present.
"I suppose I am a child still," remarked Maria.
"I have never observed anything inconsistent with that supposition, my dear," her aunt serenely answered.
"And if I had been baptized last night, you would have more respect for me," went on poor Maria.
"My respect is not wholly dependent on forms, my dear. If it had been done in a proper way, of course, things would be different from what they are. I should have more respect for you."
"Clarissa has done it in a proper way, I suppose?"
"When she was of a proper age – yes; certainly."
"And then, what did she promise? All that they promised last night?"
"The vows are much the same."
"Well, people ought not to make vows till they are ready to keep them – ought they?"
"Certainly they should not."
"Well – "
"My dear, it is a very bad habit to begin every sentence with a 'well.' You do it constantly."
"Well, Aunt Candy – "
"There!" exclaimed Clarissa. "Again."
"Well, I don't care," said Maria. "I can't help it. I don't know when I do it. I was going to ask – and you put everything out of my head. – Aunt Candy, do you think Clarissa has given up, really, the pomps and vanities and all that, you know? She spent twenty-four dollars, I heard her say, on the trimming of that muslin dress; and she bought a parasol the other day for ten dollars, when one for three would have done perfectly well; and she pays always twelve dollars for her boots, twelve and ten dollars; when she could get nice ones for four and five. Now what's that?"
"It's impertinence," said Clarissa. "And untruth; for the four and five dollar boots hurt my feet."
"They are exactly the same," said Maria; "except the kid and the trimming and the beautiful making."
"Very well," said Clarissa, "I have a right to wear comfortable shoes, if I can get them."
"Then you have a right to pomps and vanities," returned Maria; "but I say you haven't a right, after you have declared and sworn you would have nothing to do with them."
"Mamma," said Clarissa, but with heightened colour, "Is this a child?"
"After the Shadywalk pattern," Mrs. Candy answered.
"Girls in Shadywalk have a little sense, when they get to be as old as sixteen," Maria went on. "Where you have been, perhaps they do not grow up so fast."
"People would put weights on their heads if they did," said Clarissa.
"It doesn't matter," said Maria. "You can imagine that I am as old as you are; and I say that it is more respectable not to make promises and vows than to make them and not keep them."
"Do not answer her, my dear," said Mrs. Candy.
"And that is the reason why I have not been baptized, or whatever you call it – "
"I never said so, Maria," said her aunt. "The two things are not the same."
"Imagine it!" said Clarissa.
"Well, you said just now – I don't know what you said! – but you said at any rate that if it had been done in a proper way, you would think more of me; and I say, that it is better not to make vows till you are ready to keep them. I am not ready to give up dancing; and I would have expensive hats and dresses, and feathers, and watches, and chains, and everything pretty that money can buy, if I had the money; and I like them; and I want them."
"I have not given up dancing," said Clarissa.
"Nor other things either," retorted Maria; "but they are pomps and vanities. That is what I say. You promised you would have nothing to do with them."
"Mamma!" said Clarissa, appealingly.
"Yes, my dear," said her mother. "The amount of ignorance in Maria's words discourages me from trying to answer them."
"Ignorance and superstition, mamma."
"And superstition," said Mrs. Candy.
"Matilda thinks just the same way," Clarissa went on, meeting the broad open astonished eyes of the little girl.
"Of course," said Mrs. Candy. "Matilda is too much a child to exercise her own judgment on these matters. She just takes what has been told her."
"Have you given up dancing too, Tilly?" Clarissa went on.
"I have never thought about it, Cousin Clarissa."
"Matilda all over!" exclaimed the young lady. "She has not thought about it, mamma. When she thinks about it, she will know what her part is."
"Very well," said Mrs. Candy. "She might do worse."
"I suppose you think I can't think," said poor Maria.
"No, my dear; I only think you have not begun yet to use your power in that direction. When you do, you will see things differently."
"It would take a good deal of thinking, to make me see that giving up the world and going into it were the same thing," said Maria. "And I don't mean to promise to do it till I'm ready."
"Mamma, this is not very pleasant," said Clarissa.
"No, my dear. We will leave the field to Maria. Come to me at ten o'clock, Matilda."
The two ladies filed off up-stairs, and Maria sat down to cry. Matilda began to clear the table, going softly back and forth between the basement and the kitchen as if there were trouble in the house. Maria sobbed.
"Ain't they mean?" she exclaimed, starting up at length. Matilda was busy going in and out, and said nothing.
"Matilda! Why don't you speak? I say, ain't they mean?"
"There's no use in talking so, Maria," said her little sister, looking sorrowful.
"Yes, there is. People ought to hear the truth."
"But if you know what is right, why don't you do it, Maria?"
"I do – as well as I can."
"But, Maria! – I mean, about what you were saying; giving up whatever is not right."
"Things are right for other people, that are not right for members of the Church. That's why I want to wait awhile. I am not ready."
"But, Maria, what makes them right for other people?"
"They
