ping short.

"Why, she wants it _then_. She has a right to have tea when she likes."

But Matilda sighed as she spoke, for her aunt's likings were becoming a
heavy burden to her, in the present and in the future. The two girls
went gently round, setting the table, cutting the bread, putting out
the sweetmeat, getting the teapot ready for the tea; then they stood
together over the stove, waiting for the time to make it.

"There's one comfort," Matilda said with another sigh;--"we can do it
all for Christ."

"What?" said Maria, starting.

"It is work He has given us to do, you know, Maria; and we have
promised to do everything we can to please Him. So we can do this to
please Him."

"I don't see how," said Maria. "_This_ isn't Band work;--do you think
it is?"

"It isn't Sunday-School work; but, Maria, you know, 'we are the
servants of Christ.' Now He has given us this work to do."

"That's just talking nonsense," said Maria. "There is no religion in
pots and kettles."

Matilda had to think her way out of that statement.

"Maria, in the covenant, you know, we say 'we stand ready to do His
will;' and you _know_ it is His will that we should have these things
to do."

"I don't!" said Maria; "that's a fact."

"Then how comes it that we have them?"

"Just because mamma is sick, and Aunt Erminia is too mean to live!"

"You should not speak so," said Matilda. "How comes mamma to be sick?
and how comes it that we have got no money to hire a girl?"

"Because that man in New York was wicked, and ran away with mamma's
money."

"Maria," said Matilda, solemnly, "I don't see what you meant by joining
the Band."

"I meant more than you did!" said Maria, flaming out. "Such children as
you are too young to join it."

"We are not too young to be Christians."

"You are too young to join the Church and be baptized."

"Why?" said Matilda.

"Oh, you are too young to _understand_. Anybody that knows will tell
you so. And if you are not fit to be baptized and join the Church, you
are not fit to join the Band. Now I can make the tea."

Matilda looked hard at the teapot, as it stood on the stove while the
tea was brewing; but she let her sister alone after that. When the meal
was over, and the dishes washed and everything done, she and Maria went
up to their own room, and Maria at once went to bed. Her little sister
opened her Bible, and read, over and over, the words that had comforted
her. They were words from God;