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 into his cheeks. He's not quite so far as that, though. Like them! He raised himself half up and lay on his elbow to eat them. Think of that! You should have seen the fellow. Spoons were no go. He just forked them in with his fingers."

"Does he lie in the entry yet, David?"

"No. His mother has got him into her bit of a room, and the wash tub is where he was. I do think we might get him into the country next week, if there was any place he could go to. He's like another boy, with a bed under him and clean things and food that he can eat. I do believe he was starving to death. Sick folks can't get along on dry crusts, or even mush – plain, without butter or molasses," said David smiling.

"David, I have thought of something."

"What is it? Something to help us out of the difficulty?"

"I don't know. See what you think. You heard Miss Redwood and me talking of Lilac lane, and people that live in it?"

"I heard nothing of Lilac lane; never did, till this minute."

"O you were in the study with Mr. Richmond. It is a place in Shadywalk where some very poor people live."

"Well?" said David.

"But it is a delightful place compared to Mrs. Binn's tenement house. I know some of the people there, and Miss Redwood knows more; and I was thinking, perhaps she could find a house where they would take Josh in and take care of him till he gets well. Miss Redwood could see to him a little, you know."

"Why it's a capital idea, Tilly!" cried David. "Did you write and ask her?"

"No, but I will."

"Do, to-day. That's just what he wants. Write, Tilly. I must be off to my work."

Nothing stopped David's work, in these days; indeed he never had been given to playing truant. Matilda pondered the matter a little, and then wrote a letter to Miss Redwood; upon which letter, when it reached Shadywalk, the housekeeper and the minister held consultation. The end was, that after a week Matilda got an answer which said that the poor family opposite Matilda's old Sally in Lilac lane, the same from whom she had borrowed the teakettle once upon a time, had room to spare and would gladly take the sick child in and take care of him, for the compensation which would be offered. Miss Redwood also engaged herself to see that proper care was had and proper food given; and in short the way was clear.

"That will do," said David when he had read the letter. "Now, the thing is to get him up there."

"Is Mrs. Binn willing?"

"She is one of the willingest persons you ever saw in your life."

"Well, how will you manage, David?"

"I don't see any way but to go myself."

"Go up to Shadywalk, you mean, to take the child there?"

"Yes."

"O, David, would you! And could you?"

"I don't see any other way."

"But school? will you miss a day?"

"Can't do that; and can't even give Saturday, so near the end of term. I'll manage it."

"How, David?"

"Go up after school some day, and take a night train down."

"Is Josh – I mean, has he any clothes fit to travel in?"

"He has not any fit to sit up in at home. Never mind, I'll manage that, Tilly."

"David, you tell me some of the things he wants, and I'll get Sarah Staples and her mother to make them."

"Well. – But I'll pay charges, Tilly; I don't believe you've got much in that little pocket of yours."

This consultation was private; and in private the new clothes for Joshua Binn were procured and got ready; very plain and coarse clothes, for David and Matilda were learning how much there was to do with their money. All this caused no remark, not being open to it. But when David took little Josh, wrapped up in an old cloak of his, and drove with him in a carriage to the station, and took the cars with him to Shadywalk, there was a general outcry and burst of astonishment and indignation. David was at breakfast the next morning as usual; and the storm fell upon him.

"I wonder how you feel this morning," said his grandmother, half in displeasure and half in sympathy; for David was a favourite.

"After travelling all night," added Mrs. Laval.

"Up to study, Davy?" asked Norton.

"I am so astonished at you, David, that I do not know how to speak," began his mother. "You– always until now a refined, gentlemanly boy, —you to turn yourself into a head hospital nurse, and Poor Society agent! travelling in company with the lowest riff-raff! I don't know what to make of you. Really, I am in despair."

"He always was a poke," said Judy; "and now he's a poor poke."

"It is too bad!" echoed Mrs. Laval; "though that isn't true, Judy."

"He's a spoiled boy," said Judy. "I wash my hands of him. I hope he'll wash his hands."

"The idea!" said Mrs. Bartholomew. "As if there was nobody else in the world to look after sick children, but Davy must leave his own business and go nursing them in the cars! I wouldn't have had anybody see him for a thousand dollars."

"What harm, mamma?" asked David coolly.

"Harm?" repeated Mrs. Bartholomew. "Is it your business to take all sick New York and all poor New York on your hands, and send them to watering places?"

"One poor little child?" said David.

"No matter; what's the use of sending one, if you don't send the other hundred thousand? Is it your business, David Bartholomew?"

"Hardly, mamma. But I thought the one was my business."

"There you were mistaken. There are two or three poor societies; it is for them to look after these cases. What is the use of having poor societies, if we are to do the work ourselves? So low! so undignified! so degrading! just ask any minister, – ask Dr. Blandford, – what he thinks."

"David don't care, mamma," said Judy. "David never cares what anybody thinks."

"Very wrong, then," said Mrs. Bartholomew; "every right-feeling person cares what other people think. How is the world to get along? David, I don't know you any more, you are so changed."

"Yes, mamma," said David; "perhaps I am."

"Perhaps you are? Why my patience!" —

"Your patience seems to have given out, daughter," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Come, let Davy eat his breakfast."

"He's eating it," said Judy. "Nothing will hurt David's appetite."

"I should think nursing poor folks out of tenement houses might," observed Mrs. Bartholomew. "It would once."

"I can't imagine, mamma," said Judy, "how we are going to live together in future. David isn't our sort any more. Life looks dark to me."

"If it was anybody but David," said Mrs. Bartholomew, "I should say he would grow out of it. Any other young fool would."

"Grow out of what, mamma?" David asked.

"Grow out of the notion of being an agent of the poor societies. It's too disgusting!"

"Mamma," he said, and he said it with such an unruffled face that Matilda was comforted, "the poor society would not have done what I did last night. And I am not doing it for the poor societies, but for the King Messiah. I am His agent; that's all."

"Where did you get your commission?" Norton asked.

David hesitated, and then said, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you – "

"But that's absolute nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Bartholomew.

"What, mamma?" said David, lifting his eyes to her face.

"I mean, of course, the words are not nonsense, but putting such a meaning to them."

"What meaning do you think belongs to them, then, mamma?"

"Why," said Mrs. Bartholomew in high dudgeon, "if you are to take them so, then we ought to send our carriage to take poor people to drive, and we ought to give our grapes and our wine to sick people, instead of eating them ourselves; and I ought to sell my diamonds and change them into bread and coffee and feather beds, I suppose; and our silks and laces ought to go for rents and firing for those who are in want."

"Well, mother?" said David.

"Well; is that what you mean?"

"That's what the words mean, if they mean anything, mamma. I think the King wants all we have got, to be used in his work; and all mine he shall have."

There was no braggadocio, but a sweet steadfastness in the words and manner which impressed all his hearers; though it impressed them differently.

"Mother, what do you think of him?" Mrs. Bartholomew said, apparently in despair.

"I don't know what to think, child," said the old lady. "I am puzzled."

"About me, grandmamma?" asked David.

"No, boy; I never was puzzled about you, and I am not now."

"We'll have grandma going over next!" exclaimed Judy, "and then – What'll be then, mamma? Will this be a hospital, grandmamma? I shouldn't like to live here in that case, because of the fevers. I declare, I'm very sorry! Will David be the doctor or the minister, grandmamma?"

"Hush, Judy!" said her mother. "Things are bad enough without you."

"There's one thing, you vexatious boy," said Judy; "your uncles will give you up."

"They have done that already," said David quietly.

"Have they? O have they really, mamma? Then they won't give him their money when they die! nor me neither. You hateful fellow! to go and make me poor as well as yourself." And Judy began to cry. "I thought we'd be so rich, mamma!"

"Do hold your tongue, Judy," said her mother. "You've got enough, and David much more than enough."

But with this the uncomfortable breakfast party broke up.

"Matilda," said Mrs. Laval when they had gone upstairs, – "I don't know whether you have done good or harm."

"She's done no good, mamma," said Norton. "Just look at Davy. And I can tell you, grandmamma is beginning to read the Bible to herself; I've seen her at it."

"But I haven't done anything, mamma," said Matilda.

"Well, my dear, I don't know who has, then," Mrs. Laval replied.

And the subject was dropped. But certainly Mrs. Lloyd did begin after that to ask Matilda now and then, when they were alone, to read to her; and Matilda found that David did it constantly, by his grandmother's desire, in her own room.

The weeks were few now to the time when the household would break up; Mrs. Laval and her children to return to Briery Bank, Mrs. Bartholomew and hers for a cottage at Newport. Mrs. Lloyd was accustomed to abide generally with the latter. All the members of the family were busied with their various preparations; and the unsettled feeling of coming change was upon the whole household. Little else was thought of. So when an invitation came from the mother of Esther Francis, that all the young ones should join a party of pleasure that were going to spend the day in Westchester, it was a very unlooked for variety in the general course of things. Of course they would go. The young people were to eat strawberries and do everything else that was pleasant, at General Francis's place. Mrs. Francis was not yet ready to leave town; there was nobody in possession but the servants; the widest liberty would be the rule of the day.

"How nice that the boys are out of school!" said Matilda. "Term just ended."

"Of course. Couldn't have the party without the people," said Judy.

"Will there be a great many, Norton?" Matilda asked.

"Don't know anything about it. You must ask somebody else. Esther Francis isn't our cousin."

"How dry you are," said David. "I know no more about it, Matilda, than he does."

"Esther said there would be twenty or thirty," said Judy. "How are we going? that's what I want to know."

"Take the Harlem railroad to the station," said Norton, "and drive the rest. That's the way you always go to General Francis's. Mamma! I'd like to drive Pink out. It's only thirteen miles."

"I'm afraid, Norton. I think you had better all go together."

Norton grumbled a little; however, it was good enough even so.

The day was the first of June; fresh and sweet as the first of June should be. The four were in the cars early; and as soon as the train had got quit of the city, the sights and smells of the country roused Matilda to the highest pitch of delight. Such green fields! such blue sky! such delicious air! and such varieties of pleasant objects that she had not seen for some time! The rush to the station was one whirl of pleasure; then the pleasure grew greater, for they got into a carriage to drive across the country. Every foot of the way, though it was not through a very enchanting landscape, was joyous to Matilda's vision; and when the grounds were reached of General Francis's villa, there was nothing more left in this world to desire. For there were plantations of trees, extending far and wide, with roads and paths cut through them; over which the young fresh foliage cast the sweetest of shadow. There were meadows, broad and fair, green and smooth, with a little river winding along in them, and scattered trees here and there for shade, and fringes of willows and alders to the sides of the stream. And at a little distance stood the large old house, with groves of trees encircling it and lawns before and on one side of it; and on the side lawn, in the edge of the grove, long tables set and spread with damask.

"Dinner already?" queried Norton. "I am hungry enough."

"Dinner at ten o' clock!" cried Judy. "Breakfast, you mean."

"Esther, is it breakfast?" asked Norton, as their little hostess came to them.

"It is what you like, Mr. Laval," said the little lady; whose pink bows were not more in style than her manners.

"Norton is hungry, Esther," David remarked.

"I hope you are, too."

"What are you going to give us, Esther?" said Judy eagerly. "We are all like bears. Strawberries?"

"We must wait for another carriage. The Grandsons are coming."

"I wouldn't wait," said Judy. "What's the use? Ten o' clock is late enough for breakfast."

"But we shall not have the collation till three."

"What have you got for breakfast?"

"Coffee."

"And strawberries?"

"Haven't you had any strawberries this year?"

"Lots; but not in the country, you know, where they grow."

"And not with such yellow cream as we have got from our dairy."

"Will you have cream enough for all, Esther?" David asked, as coming round the house they saw a small crowd of young people collected near the tables. Esther smiled and bridled, and then there was no more private talk, but a whole chorus of greetings and questions and answers. And then another carriage drew up, with the missing Grandsons; and the party went to breakfast.

It seemed to Matilda that to eat under the shadow of trees, and on the carpet of the grass, and with the music of leaves and insects and breezes, was the very most delightful thing that could be invented. She was very hungry, no doubt; and Mrs. Francis's excellent cook had made capital provision for her young mistress; but besides all that, how pretty it was! The light flickered through the oak leaves upon the white tablecloths, and gleamed from china and glass and silver in the most cheery way; it gleamed upon the little river too and upon the blades of grass on the lawn. Out there the sunshine was full; the eye went across to the scattered trees and to the further woods on the other side; a great promising playground it looked. And then the air was so sweet and fresh. Matilda was not seated very well for her pleasure; nobody near that she knew very well; nevertheless she eat her strawberries and cream and devoured rolls and butter with a contented appreciation of what she had, and an amused observation of what was around her.

How were they to spend the day?

This question received earnest attention as soon as the business of breakfast was off their hands.

"Day is pretty well gone already," said Norton consulting his watch. "It is twelve o' clock. There is not time for anything else but to have dinner and go home."

"We do not dine till four o' clock," Esther announced.

"Four hours," said somebody. "Time enough to get hungry again. I'll take anybody that wants to go a row on the river; if somebody'll help me row."

"Everybody do what everybody likes until three o' clock," said Esther. "Suppose then, at three o' clock, we all gather in the pavilion and have games?"

Unanimous acceptance of this proposal. Then a flutter and division and scattering of the little crowd.

Matilda wondered what she would do, or be asked to do. She would have liked the sail on the Bronx; but so would a good many more. The little boat was very soon filled with the eager applicants, and David volunteered to help row it. One of Matilda's friends was thus removed from her. She turned to look for Norton. He was not to be seen. A general stampede of the boys to the stables made it supposable that he was in the midst of the gay little group rushing that way. Matilda looked around her. The tables were deserted; the little boat had disappeared up the stream; all the boys were gone; and one or two groups of girls, unknown to her, were loitering over the grass towards the house. A flush of vexation and embarrassment came over Matilda. Was this civility? and what was she to do with herself for three hours to come? And how disagreeable, to be regarded as of no consequence and no concern to anybody. Tears swelled in their fountains, but Matilda was not going to cry. She would not linger alone by the table; she did not know her way in the house, and besides would not seek those who should properly seek her; she turned her steps to the little river. The flowing water had a great charm for her; the bank was smooth and green; she wandered along till she came to what she called a nice place, where a young willow hung over and dipped its long branches in, and the bank offered a soft shady seat. Matilda sat down, and felt very lonely. But glimpses taken through the trees and shrubbery shewed her nobody near or far, except the servants; and Matilda resolved to be quiet and wait for better things by and by. She looked at her watch; it was half past twelve. I am bound to confess it was a good half hour more before Matilda could get the better of a desperate fit of disappointment and vexation. She had not counted upon spending her holiday in this manner; and slights and unkindness are pleasant to nobody. There is something in use, however, and more in a quiet mind. The little girl's roiled feelings at last ran clear again; and she began to enjoy things after her own fashion.

The ripple and flow of that water was certainly delicious; it made one cool only to hear it. She could get down to the brink too and cautiously dip her hand in. There were little fishes in a shallow there; their play and movement were very amusing, and Matilda went into deep speculation about how much they knew, and what they felt, and what their manner of life amounted to, and how they probably regarded the strange creature looking down at them. Very much she wondered what they could eat to live upon. The water plants that grew along the stream had Matilda's attention too, and the mosses that covered the stones. And one or two grasshoppers finally proved a great source of entertainment. She quite forgot to feel lonely, and was taking her enjoyment in a very harmonious way; when she heard a different swash of the water and the dip of oars, and the boat shot round a curve and came down the stream. She watched it, wondering whether its crew would see her. Just opposite her willow the oars stopped.

"Is that you, Tilly?" David cried.

A small "yes" came from the bank.

"What are you doing there?"

"O, amusing myself."

"Where is everybody else?"

"I don't know."

"Where's Norton?"

"I don't know. I think he went to see the horses."

"Come down to the landing," said David after a moment's pause.

Matilda nodded, and the boat shot forward again. It had turns to take following the course of the stream; while she on the land could cut across points, and she reached the landing place the first.

The little party landed with cries of pleasure, and the next thing, set off on a run for the house. David purposely hung back, so that he and Matilda in a few minutes were behind all the others.

"Where is everybody?" inquired David.

"I don't know."

"What have you been doing all this while?"

"It was very pretty down by the water, David. I didn't mind; – at least, not after the first. It was very pleasant there."

"All alone?"

"Yes; except the fishes and the grasshoppers."

"Well – I shall cut out the fishes now."

David kept his word. A deputation of the boys met them and begged him to go where the others were riding. David went, but kept hold of Matilda's hand, though warned that "the girls" were finding other amusements in the house. Matilda was taken into the meadow where the boys and the horses were congregated; a safe seat was found for her on the wall, from whence she could survey the whole field; and though David took his share in the amusements that followed, riding and racing with the other boys, he never let her feel herself forgotten or alone; stopping his horse every now and then in front of her to say something and find out if she was happy. Matilda was very happy, greatly amused, and intensely pleased that David had constituted himself her protector. The hours sped along; the soft June sun was never too hot; the little white clouds that crossed the sky cast shadows not needed for the busy pleasure seekers, nor even for the quiet spectator. At last Matilda heard a shout behind her.