Trading

Matilda turned the catalogue over and over with a disturbed mind. It seemed to her that to have such a little greenhouse as Norton proposed, full of beauties, would be one of the most enjoyable things that could be. Every new page of the catalogue, every new detail of Norton's plan, tugged at her heart-strings. She wanted to get those plants and flowers. A few delicate tea roses, some crimson blush roses, some pots of delicious purple heliotropes with spicy breath; two or three – or four – great double carnations; bunches of violets, sweetest of all; she wanted these! Then some azaleas, larger of course, to fill up the shelves and make a beautiful show of colour, as Norton desired. Her imagination went over and over the catalogue, always picking these out for her choice; and then imagination took them to the little room upstairs, which was going to be such a lovely little greenhouse, and saw them there and almost smelt their fragrance. It would be so pleasant to take care of them; she fancied herself watering them and dressing them, picking off the dead leaves and tying up the long wreaths of vines, and putting flowers into Mrs. Laval's stem glass for her dressing table. But what use? she had not the money to buy the plants, if she went on with her plans for Sarah's behoof; no counting nor calculating could come to any other conclusion. She thought of it by day and she thought of it by night; and the more she thought, the more her desires grew. Then too, the wish to please Norton was a very serious element in her cogitations. To disappoint him by utterly failing to do all he wished and counted upon from her, was very hard to do and very disagreeable to face. But Sarah? Matilda could not change her line of action, nor divert more than one dollar from the fund saved for her benefit. One dollar, Matilda thought, might be given for flowers; but what would one dollar be worth, with all one side of the little greenhouse to be filled.

It is not easy to tell, how much trouble all this question gave Matilda. She thought it was quite strange and notable, that just when she was trying to accomplish so right a thing as the helping of that poor family in the cellar, this temptation of flowers should come up to make it hard. In one of her windows stood three little pots, in which three hyacinths were already bursting through the brown earth and showing little stout green points of leaf buds which promised nicely for other buds by and by. They had been a delight to Matilda's heart only a week ago; now, it seemed as if that vision of heliotropes and roses and geraniums had somehow swallowed them up.

When she went 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 thinking what I would like to have."

"And you are not going to come into the greenhouse at all?"

That was more than Matilda had counted upon; the tears started to her eyes; but she only said, —

"I cannot get the plants, Norton;" and she said it steadily.

"You are going into that ridiculous charitable concern?"

Matilda was beyond answering just then; she kept silence.

"Let me into your greenhouse, Norton," said Judy.

"Yes; fine work you would make there," Norton replied.

"Indeed I would. I'll fill my shelves with just the finest things we can get; camellias, if you like; and the newest geraniums, and everything."

"You wouldn't take care of them if you had them."

"Well, you would," said Judy; "and it comes to the same thing."

"Pink," said Norton, "I must have my shelves full; and I can't do it all. If you won't come into the greenhouse, I shall let Judy come."