said Maria; "they could come if
they wanted to, I am sure."

"Don't you think we might go and ask them? Perhaps they would come if
anybody asked them."

"Yes, we might," said Maria; "but you see, Tilly, I haven't any time.
It'll take me every bit of time I can get between now and Sunday to
finish putting the braid on that frock; you have no idea how much time
it takes. It curls round this way, and then twists over that way, and
then gives two curls, so and so; and it takes a great while to do it. I
almost wish I had chosen an easier pattern; only this is so pretty."

"But you promised, Maria."

"I didn't promise to go and look up people, child. I only promised to
do what I could. Besides, what have _you_ got to do with it? You did
not promise at all."

"I will go with you, if you will go up to the Dows'," said Matilda.

"Oh, well!--don't worry, and I'll see about it."

"But will you go? Come, Maria, let us go."

"When?"

"Any afternoon. To-morrow."

"What makes you want to go?" said Maria, looking at her.

"I think you _ought_ to go," Matilda answered, demurely.

"And I say, what have you got to do with it? I don't see what
particular concern of mine the Dows are, anyhow."

Matilda sat a long while thinking after this speech. She was on the
floor, pulling off her stockings and unlacing her boots; and while her
fingers moved slowly, drawing out the laces, her cogitations were very
busy. What concern _were_ the Dows of hers or Maria's? They were not
pleasant people to go near, she judged, from the look of their house
and dooryard as she had seen it in passing; and the uncombed, fly-away
head of the little girl gave her a shudder as she remembered it. They
were not people that were often seen in church; they could not be good;
maybe they used bad language; certainly they could not be expected to
know how to "behave." Slowly the laces were pulled out of Matilda's
boots, and her face grew into portentous gravity.

"Aren't you coming to bed?" said Maria. "What can you be thinking of?"

"I am thinking of the Dows?"

"What about them? I never thought about them three times in my life."

"But oughtn't we to think about people, Maria?"

"Nice people."

"I mean, people that are not nice."

"It will be new times when you do," said Maria. "Come! let the Dows
alone and come to bed."

"Maria," said her little sister as she obeyed this request, "I was
thinking that Jesus thought about people that were not ni