ng from her
silence and her seat together, and pointing to Matilda. "_She_ has made
the mischief. David would never have thought of these low ways, if
there had not been somebody to put it into his head. That's what you
get, aunt Zara, by your works."

"Hush!" said Mrs. Bartholomew sharply. "Matilda has nothing to do with
it."

"Hasn't she though?" Judy retorted. "Just ask her. Or ask this boy.
Mean little spy! coming into such a house as this to upset it!"

"Hold on, Judy," cried Norton; "you are going too fast."

"Keep yourself out of the mess!" retorted Judy with great sharpness;
"there's enough without you. I say, she is at the bottom of it all; and
I wish it was the bottom of the Red Sea with Pharaoh's chariots!"

"Judy, Judy!" said Mrs. Bartholomew, angry and half laughing--"hold
your tongue and don't be a fool."

"You've only one of that name among your children, mamma," said the
young lady. "Half's enough."

"What has Matilda done?" Mrs. Laval asked calmly.

"She has been doing ever since she came here," Judy answered.

"What _has_ bewitched you, David, though?" his mother inquired. "There
was nothing of all this when you went to the catechizing?"

"No, mamma. But the study about that time put me on thinking and asking
questions; nobody could answer my questions; not even our wise men;
until at last I began to ask--where I found the answer."

"Matilda?" said Mrs. Bartholomew.

"Matilda helped me a great deal."

"Didn't I say so?" exclaimed Judy.

"But it was her Bible that answered me--hers and my own."

"When did she help you?" Norton broke out from his corner where he had
been tossing his book. "You and she are not such particular friends,
that ever I knew."

"O but I think we are now, Norton," said Matilda.

"Yes," said David, with a smile. "And she has been _my_ friend for a
good while."

"Very well," said Norton, returning to his book, which he tossed over
and over with greater exactness than ever.

"I wash my hands of you, both of you," cried Judy. "You'll be a
religious poke--O mamma! to think that we should have anything
religious in _our_ family. And Matilda always was a poke. Whatever will
become of us, with two of them!"

"You have more to do with it than you think, Judy," said her brother.
"The way Matilda bore your persecutions was the first thing that made
me want to know about her religion."

"What persecutions?" Mrs. Bartholomew asked; but nobody seemed ready to
answer