t next to Sunday school, however, and saw Sarah's meek,
patient face, Matilda was very much astonished at herself, and not a
little ashamed. She sat next Sarah in the class, and could see without
seeming to see, how thin her dress was and how limp it was, as if she
had not enough petticoats under it to keep her warm. There was a patch
too in one place. And Sarah's shawl was a very poor wrap alongside of
the well covered shoulders under Matilda's thick coat. "No gloves!"
said Matilda to herself, as her eye glanced from her own very handsome
and warm ones; "how can she bear it? I wonder how it makes her feel, to
see mine? Another time I'll wear an older pair." But the contrast went
home to Matilda's heart. Why should she have so many good things, and
Sarah so few? and the words David had quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures
came back to her.

With an odd feeling as if there were wrong done for which she was
somehow chargeable, after the lesson was done and school dismissed she
asked Sarah "how she was?" The girl's meek eye brightened a little as
she answered that she was well.

"But you are hoarse," said Matilda. "You have got cold."

"O I often do, in the winter time," said Sarah. "I don't think anything
of it."

And that slight shawl and thin dress! Matilda's heart gave some painful
blows to her conscience.

"I didn't see you at your place the other day," she went on.

"That was Thursday," said Sarah. "No; I was too bad Thursday. I didn't
go out."

So she staid at home to nurse her cold, in that cellar room with the
mud floor. What sort of comfort could be had there? or what good of
nursing? Matilda did not wonder that the street corner was quite as
pleasant and nearly as profitable. And the thought of Sarah's gentle
pale face as she said those words so went home to her heart, that she
was crying half the way home; tears of sorrow and sympathy running down
her face, as fast as she wiped them away.

That same evening, at tea-time, Norton asked if she had made up her
list of plants for the greenhouse? Matilda said no.

"We shall want them, now, Pink. By Wednesday I shall have the staging
ready; and the sooner we get it filled the better."

"O but, dear Norton," said Matilda, "I am very sorry to disappoint you;
but I cannot take the money."

"Can't take what money?"

"The money to buy those plants. I would like them; but I cannot."

"But you were making your list," said Norton.

"No, I wasn't. I was only thi