Part 28 (1/2)
”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.”