The House in Town Part 28

"What was it?"

"A liqueur stand. Grandmamma was admiring it. It is very elegant; the shapes of the flasks and cups are so uncommon, and so pretty."

"David is a judge of that," said Norton by way of comment to Matilda.

"I go in for colour, and he for shapes."

"There is no colour here," said David; "it is all clear gla.s.s."

"The cordial will give the colour," said Norton. "Yes, I think that will do. Hurra! Grandmamma is always on my mind about this time, and it keeps down my spirits."

"Who'll go and get it?" said Judy.

"We'll all go together," said Norton. "We are _all_ going to get it; didn't you understand? I want to see for myself, for my part, before the thing's done. I say! let us each give a gla.s.s, and have our names engraved on them."

"I don't want anybody to drink out of 'Judy,'" said the young lady tossing her head.

"Grandmamma will think she is kissing you," said Norton. "She'll wear out that gla.s.s, that's the worst of it."

"Then somebody else will have to drink out of 'David,'" said Judy's brother. "I don't know about that."

"Well, she'd like it," said Norton.

"But I wouldn't," said Judy. "I have no objection to her kissing me; but fancy other people!"

"It won't hurt," said Norton. "You'll never feel it through the gla.s.s.

But anyhow, we'll all go to Candello's to-morrow and see the thing, and see what we'll do. Maybe she'll give us cordial in our own cups. That would be jolly!--if it was noyau."

"You are getting jolly already," said Judith. "Does Matilda ever get jolly?"

"You'll find out," said Norton; "in course of time, if you keep your eyes open. But I don't believe you know a brick when you see it, Judy."

"A brick!" said that young lady.

"Yes. There are a great many sorts, David can tell you. Bricks are a very old inst.i.tution. I was studying about Chaldaean bricks lately.

They were a foot square and two or three inches thick; and if they were not well baked they would not stand much, you know."

"What nonsense you are talking!" said Judith scornfully.

"Some of those bricks were not nonsense, for they have lasted four thousand years. That's what I call--a brick!"

"You wouldn't know it if you saw it though," David remarked.

"You shut up!" said Norton. "Some of your ancestors made them for Nebuchadnezzar."

"Some of my ancestors were over the whole province of Babylon," said David. "But _that_ was not four thousand years ago."

"When I get back as far as Nebuchadnezzar," said Norton shutting his eyes, as if in the effort at abstraction, "I have got as far as I can go. The stars of history beyond that seem to me all at one distance."

"They do not seem so to me," said David. "It was long before Nebuchadnezzar that Solomon reigned; and the Jews were an old people then."

"I know!" said Norton. "Nothing can match you but the Celestials. After all, Noah's three sons all came out of the ark together."

"But the nations of Ham are all gone," said David; "and the nations of j.a.phet are all changing."

"This fellow's dreadful on history?" said Norton to Matilda. "I used to _think_," he went on as the coloured waiter just then came in with coffee, "I used to _think_ there were some of Ham's children left yet."

"But not a nation," said David.

The one of Ham's children in question came round to them at this minute, and the talk was interrupted by the business of cream and sugar. The four children were all round the coffee tray, when Mrs.

Laval's voice was heard calling Matilda. Matilda went across the room to her.

"Are they giving you coffee, my darling?" said Mrs. Laval, putting her arm round her.

"I was just going to have some."

"I don't want you to take it. Will it seem very hard to deny yourself?"

"Why no," said Matilda; then with an effort,--"No, mamma; not if you wish me to let it alone."

"I do. I don't want this delicate colour on your cheek," and she touched it as she spoke, "to grow thick and muddy; I want the skin to be as fair and clear as it is now."

"Norton takes coffee," said Mrs. Bartholomew.

"I know. Norton is a boy. It don't matter."

"Judy!" Mrs. Bartholomew called across the room, "Judy! don't _you_ touch coffee."

"It's so hot mamma, I don't touch it. I swallow it without touching. It goes right down."

"I don't like you to drink it."

"It would be a great deal pleasanter to drink it, than to swallow it in that way," said Judy, coming across the room with a hop, skip and jump indescribable. "But coffee is coffee anyhow. Mayn't I take it a little cooler and a little slower next time?"

"It will make your complexion thick."

"It will make my eyes bright, though," said Judy unblushingly.

"I never heard that," said Mrs. Bartholomew laughing.

"O but I have, though," said Judy. "I have seen your eyes ever so bright, mamma, when you have been drinking coffee."

"Yours are bright enough without it," said her mother.

"Yes'm," said Judy contentedly, standing her ground.

Matilda wondered a good deal at both mother and daughter, and she was amused too; Judy was so funnily impudent, and Mrs. Bartholomew so lazily authoritative. She nestled within Mrs. Laval's arm which encircled her, and felt safe, in the midst of very strange social elements. Mrs. Lloyd eyed her.

"How old is that child, Zara?"