knocked, however, and steps carne within,
and Miss Redwood opened the door.

"Well!" she said, "here's the first one this blessed afternoon. I
thought I was going to get along for once without any one; but such
luck don't come to me. Wipe the snow off, dear, will you, clean? for my
hall's as nice as--well, I don't know what; as nice as it had ought to
be. That will do. Now, come in, for the air's growin' right sharp. What
is it, my dear?"

"Is Mr. Richmond at home?" Matilda asked.

"Well, I s'pose he is. I hain't hearn him nor seen him go out since
noon. Do ye want to see him, or is it a message?--ye want to see him,
eh. Well, I s'pose he'll see you--if he ain't too busy--and I don't
know when he gets time for all he has to do, but he gets it; so I
s'pose I had ought to be satisfied. _I_ don't, I know; but I s'pose men
and women is different. Some folks would say that's a reason why men
was created the first and the best; but I don't think so myself. And
here I am an old goose, a-talkin' to little Tilly Englefield about
philosophy, instead o' lettin' her into the minister's room. Well, come
in, dear; round this way; the minister has taken a notion to keep that
door shut up because of the cold."

Miss Redwood had not been idle during the utterance of this speech.
First she had been shaking the snow from the door mat on which
Matilda's feet had left it; then she seized a broom and brushed the
white masses from the hall carpet out to the piazza, and even off the
painted boards of that. Finally came in, shut the door, and led Matilda
to the back of the hall, where it turned, and two doors, indeed three,
confronted each other across a yard of intervening space. The
housekeeper knocked at the one which led into the front room; then set
it open for Matilda to go in, and closed it after her.

A pleasant room that was, though nothing in the world could be more
unadorned. Deal shelves all around were filled with books; a table or
two were piled with them; one, before the fire, was filled as well with
papers and writing materials. This fronted, however, a real blazing
fire, the very thing Miss Redwood had once been so uneasy about; in a
wide open chimney-place, where two great old-fashioned brass andirons
with round heads held a generous load of oak and hickory sticks, softly
snapping and blazing. The sweet smell of the place struck Matilda's
sense, almost before she saw the minister. It was a pure, quiet,
scented atmospher