haven't one big enough."
That want was supplied.
"Now you shall begin with running this heel," said Mrs. Candy. "See, you shall put this marble egg into the stocking, to darn upon. Now look here. You begin down here, at the middle, so – and take up only one thread at a stitch, do you see? and skip so many threads each time – "
"But there is no hole there, Aunt Erminia."
"I know that. Heels should always be run before they come to holes. There are half-a-dozen heels here, I should think, that require to be run. Now, do you see how I do it? You may take the stocking, and when you have darned a few rows, come and let me see how you get on."
Matilda in a small fit of despair took the stocking to a little distance and sat down to work. The marble egg was heavy to hold. It took a long while to go up one side of the heel and down the other. She was tired of sitting under constraint and so still. And her Aunt Candy seemed like a jailer, and that perfumed room like a prison. The quicker her work could be done, the better for her. So Matilda reflected, and her needle went accordingly.
"I have done it, Aunt Erminia," she proclaimed at last.
"Done the heel?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You cannot possibly. Come here and let me look at it. Why, of course! That is not done as I showed you, Tilly; these rows of darning should be close together, one stitch just in the middle between two other stitches; you have just gone straggling over the whole heel. That will have to come all out."
"But there is no hole in it," said Matilda.
"Always darn before the holes come. That will not do. You must pick it all out, Tilly."
"Now?" said Matilda, despairingly.
"Certainly now. You make yourself trouble in that way. I am sorry. Pick it all neatly out."
Matilda went at it impatiently; tugged at the thread; pulled the heel of her stocking into a very intricate drawn-up state; then had to smooth it out again with difficulty.
"This is very hard to come out," she said.
"Yes, it is bad picking," said her aunt, composedly.
Matilda was very impatient and very weary besides. However, work did it, in time.
"Now see if you can do it better," said Mrs. Candy.
"Now, Aunt Erminia?"
"Certainly. It is your own fault that you have made such a business of it. You should have done as I told you."
"But I am very tired."
"I dare say you are."
Matilda was very much in the mind to cry; but that would not have mended matters, and would have hurt her pride besides. She went earnestly to work with her darning needle instead. She could use it nicely, she found, with giving pains and time enough. But it took a great while to do a little. Up one side and down the other; then up that side and down the first; threading long double needlefuls, and having them used up with great rapidity; Matilda seemed to grow into a darning machine. She was very still; only a deep-drawn long breath now and then heaved her little breast. Impatience faded, however, and a sort of dulness crept over her. At last she became very tired, so tired that pride gave way, and she said so.
Mrs. Candy remarked that she was sorry.
"Aunt Candy, I think Maria may want me by this time."
"Yes. That is of no consequence."
"Maria has got no one to help her."
"She will not hurt herself," Clarissa observed.
"Aunt Erminia, wouldn't you just as lieve I should finish this by and by?"
"I will think of that," said her aunt. "All you have to do, is to work on."
"I am very tired of it!"
"That is not a reason for stopping, my dear. Rather the contrary. One must learn to do things after one is tired. That is a lesson I learned a great while ago."
"I cannot work so well or so fast, when I am tired," said Matilda.
"And I cannot work at all while you are talking to me."
Matilda's slow fingers drew the needle in and out for some time longer. Then to her great joy, the dinner bell rang.
"What does Maria mean?" said Mrs. Candy, looking at her watch. "It wants an hour of dinner-time. Run and see what it is, Matilda."
Matilda ran down-stairs.
"Do you think I have five pairs of hands?" inquired Maria, indignantly. "It is nice for you to be playing up-stairs, and I working as hard as I can in the kitchen! I won't stand this, I can tell you."
"Playing!" echoed Matilda. "Well, Maria, what do you want done?"
"Look and see. You have eyes. About everything is to be done. There's the castors to put in order, and the lettuce to get ready – I wish lettuce wouldn't grow! – and the table to set, and the sauce to make for the pudding. Now hurry."
It was absolutely better than play, to fly about and do all these things, after the confinement of darning stockings. Matilda's glee equalled Maria's discomfiture. Only, when it was all done and the dinner ready, Matilda stood still to think. "I am sorry I was so impatient this morning up-stairs," she said to herself.
CHAPTER II
Matilda's spirits were not quite used up by the morning's experience, for after dinner she put on her bonnet, and took her Bible, and set off on an expedition, with out asking leave of anybody. She was bent upon getting to Lilac Lane. "If I do not get there to-day, I don't know when I shall," she said to herself. "There is no telling what Aunt Candy will do."
She got there without any difficulty. It was an overcast, Aprilish day, with low clouds, and now and then a drop of rain falling. Matilda did not care for that. It was all the pleasanter walking. Lilac Lane was at some distance from home, and the sun had a good deal of power on sunny days now. The mud was all gone by this time; in its place a thick groundwork of dust. Winter frost was replaced by soft spring air; but that gave a chance for the lane odours to come out – not the fragrance of hawthorn and primrose, by any means. Nor any such pleasant sight to be seen. Poor, straggling, forlorn houses; broken fences, or no courtyards at all; thick dust, and no footway; garbage, and ashes, and bones, but never even so much as a green potato patch to greet the eye, much less a rose or a pink; an iron shop, and a livery stable at the entrance of the lane, seeming dignified and elegant buildings by comparison with what came afterwards. Few living things were abroad; a boy or two, and two or three babies making discomposure in the dust, were about all. Matilda wondered if every one of those houses did not need to have the message carried to them? Where was she to begin?
"Does Mrs. Eldridge live in this house, or in that?" Matilda asked a boy in her way.
"In nary one."
"Where does she live?"
"Old Sally Eldridge? Sam's grandmother?"
"I don't know anything about Sam," said Matilda. "She lives alone."
"Well,
