say unto you,
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me.'"

There was no remark made by anybody following upon this reading. The
circle broke up. With dissatisfied faces the ladies and Judy and Norton
withdrew their several ways. David presently went off too, but Matilda
had noticed that _his_ face was as serene as summer moonlight. She was
gathering up her books to go too like all the rest, when to her great
surprise Mrs. Lloyd came beside her and drawing her into her arms
bestowed an earnest kiss upon her uplifted wondering face. Then they
both went silently upstairs.

CHAPTER XIV.

The peace of the house was gone. Not, indeed, that quarrelling took its
place; there was no quarrelling; only an uncomfortable feeling in the
air, and looks that were no longer pleased and pleasant. Mrs.
Bartholomew wore a discontented face, and behaved so. Judy was
snappish; not a new thing exactly, but it was invariable now. David was
very quiet and very sober; however in his case the quiet _was_ quiet,
and the soberness was very serene; all the old gloom seemed to be gone.
Norton, Matilda thought, was cross; and she failed to see the occasion.
Even Mrs. Laval looked uncomfortable sometimes, and once remarked to
Matilda that it would be pleasant to get back to Shadywalk. And Matilda
loved Shadywalk and Briery Bank, but she was not ready with a response.
She tried to be very busy with her studies, and hoped that things would
work clear by and by. Once she had the curiosity to ask Norton how
David was getting on at school?

"Well enough," Norton answered shortly.

"Do the boys like him better?"

"Better than what?"

"Why, better than they used to?"

"I don't know. _I_ don't."

"Why not, Norton? O why don't you?"

"No accounting for tastes," Norton replied, rather grumly.

"Does David study well?"

"Yes. He always did."

Norton might have said that David was walking into everything and
through everything; but he did not say anything of the kind. And sundry
other questions that trembled on the tip of Matilda's tongue, only
trembled there, and never got any further.

Meanwhile Mrs. Binn was not forgotten.

"It's worth anything," David said to Matilda one day that week, "to see
the fellow eat strawberries."

"Strawberries! O did you take strawberries to him!" cried Matilda. "And
he liked them?"

"You could almost see the red of the strawberries getting up in