"It reminds us of them, too," said Clarissa. "And we like to be reminded of those we love."
"I do not want anything to remind me of _her_," said Matilda; and the little set of her head at the moment spoke volumes. "And besides, aunt Candy and Clarissa, I did not wear mourning when I was here, except only when I went to church."
"That shewed the respect," said Mrs. Candy. "You can see easily what Mrs. Laval means, by her dressing you out in that style. Have you got a black dress under your coat?"
"Let us see what you have got," said Clarissa.
As Matilda did not move, Mrs. Candy rose and went to her and lifted up the folds of her pelisse so as to show the brown merino.
"I thought so," she remarked, as she went back to her seat.
"Mrs. Laval ought to be ashamed!" said her daughter.
Matilda had got by this time about as much as she could bear. She rose up from her uneasy chair opposite Mrs. Candy.
"O, are you going?" said that lady. "You do not care to stay long with us."
"Not to-day," said little Matilda, with more dignity than she knew, and with an air of the head and shoulders that very much irritated Mrs. Candy.
"I'd cure you of _that_," she said, "if I had you. I thought I had cured you. You would not dare hold your head like that, if you were living with me."
Now Matilda had not the least knowledge that her head was held differently from usual. She said good bye.
"Are you not going to kiss me?" said her aunt. "You are forgetting fast."
It cost an effort, but Matilda offered her cheek to Mrs. Candy and to Clarissa, and left them. She ran down the stairs and out of the house. At the little gate she stood still.
What did it all mean? Forgetting her mother? Had she done her memory an injury, by putting on her brown frock and her grey pelisse? Was there any truth in all this flood of disagreeable words, which seemed to have flowed over and half drowned her. Ought her dress to be black? It had not been when she lived with her aunt, except on particular days and out of doors, as she had said. Was there any truth in all these charges? Matilda's heart had suddenly lost all its gayety, and the struggle in her thoughts was growing more and more unendurable every moment. A confusion of doubts, questions, suspicions which she could not at once see clearly enough to cast off, and sorrow, raged and fought in her mind with indignant rejection and disbelief of them. What should she do? How could she tell what was right? Mr. Richmond! She would go straight to him.