"I don't want to be grateful to him. And mother, I _don't_ like him to bring oysters here!" "Why shouldn't he, if he likes? I am sorry to see such pride in you, Rotha. It is _very_ foolish, my child." "Mother, it looks as if he knew we were poor." "He knows it, of course. Am I not making his shirts?" Rotha was silent, clearing away the dishes and oyster shells with a good deal of decision and dissatisfaction revealed in her movements. "Everybody knows it, my child." "I do not mind everybody. I just mind him. He is different. Why is he different, mother?" "I suppose the difference you mean is, that he is a gentleman." "And what are we?" said Rotha, suddenly standing still to put the question. "We are respectable people," said her mother smiling. "Not gentlemen, of course; but what do you call us?" "If I could call you a Christian, Rotha, I should not care for anything else; at least I should not be concerned about it. Everything else would be right." "Being a Christian would not make any difference in what I am talking about." "I think it would; but I cannot talk to you about it, Ask Mr. Digby the next time he comes." "Ask _him!_" cried Rotha. "I guess I will! What makes you think he is coming again, mother?" "It would be like him." CHAPTER V. PRIVATE TUITION. More days passed however, than either of them expected, before Mr. Digby came again. They were days of stern cold winter weather, in which it was sometimes difficult to keep their little rooms comfortable without burning more coal than Mrs. Carpenter thought she could afford. Rotha ran along the streets to the corner shop where she bought tea and sugar, not quite so well wrapped up but that she found a quick pace useful to protect her from the cold; and Mrs. Carpenter wrought at her sewing sometimes with stiffened fingers. "Mother," said Rotha, one day, "_I_ think it would be better to do without tea and have a little more fire." "I do not know how to get along without tea," Mrs. Carpenter said with a sigh. "But you are getting along without almost everything else." "We do very well yet," answered the mother patiently. "Do we?" said Rotha. "If this is what you call very well-- Mother, you cannot live upon tea." "I feel as if I could not live without it." "Has Mr. Digby given you any money yet?" "The shirts are only just finished." "And what are you going to do now? But he'll pay you a good many dollars, won't he, mother? Twenty four, for twelve shirts. But there is eight to be paid for rent, I know, and that leaves only sixteen. And he can afford to pay the whole twenty four, just for a dozen shirts! Mother, I don't think some people have a _right_ to be so rich, while others are so poor." "'The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich,'"--Mrs. Carpenter answered. "Why does he?" "Sometimes, I think, he wishes to teach his children to depend on him." "Couldn't they do it if they were rich?"