Part 28 (2/2)
”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 unblus.h.i.+ngly.
”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?”
<script>