Anyway, I
shall feel as if I were doing something. I will be home
in time to finish the tree and things, for Horace will
like to help me."
And the poor girl looked her entreaties so eagerly
that her mother could not but assent to her plan.
So she made Beverly go up the avenue with her,--Beverly,
who would have swum the Potomac and back for her, had she
asked him,--as he was on his way to join his father at
the Bureau.
As they came out upon the broad sidewalk, that odious
Greenhithe, with some one whom Beverly called a
blackguard of his crew, pushed by them, and he had the
impudence to turn and touch his hat to Matty again.
Matty's hand trembled on Beverly's arm, but she would
not speak for a minute, only she walked slower and
slower.
Then she said: "I am so afraid, Bev, that Tom and he
will get into a quarrel. Tom declares he will go into
Willard's and find out whether he does know anything."
But Beverly, very mannish, tried to reassure her and
make her believe that Tom would be very self-restrained
and perfectly careful.
On Christmas Day the Jew's dry-goods store, which had
taken the place of old Mr. Gilbert's notary's office, was
closed--not perhaps so much from the Israelite's
enthusiasm about Christmas as in deference to what in New
England is called "the sense of the street." Matty,
however, acting from a precise knowledge of Washington
life, rang boldly at the green door adjacent, Beverly
still waiting to see what might turn up; and when a brisk
"colored girl" appeared, Matty inquired if Mrs.
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