jolly," said Norton. "Let's have on another stick. Now we can think and talk what we will do."
"What we will do, Norton?" Matilda repeated.
"Yes. We've got no end of things to do. Why, now we can do what we like, Pink. You aren't going away any more; and we can just lay our plans in comfort."
"I didn't know we had any plans to lay," said Matilda. She looked as if the present was good enough. The firelight shone on a little figure and face of most utter contentment, there down on the rug; a soft little head, a very gentle face, but alive with pleasant thoughts.
"We want to get home now," continued Norton.
"But it is pleasant here, too. O Norton!" Matilda broke out suddenly, "you don't know how pleasant! Now I can take the good of it. I did before, in a way; but then I was always thinking it would maybe stop to-morrow. Now it will never stop; I am so glad!"
"What will never stop?"
"O I don't know. It seems to me my happiness will never stop. You don't know anything about it, Norton. To think I am not to go back to that old life again – I was afraid of it every day; and now to-night at tea, and now, I am as happy as I can be. I can't think of it enough."
"Of what, Pink?"
"Of that. That I am not to go back to aunt Candy any more."
"What do you think of where you are going?" asked Norton a little jealously. But his face cleared the next instant.
"Norton," said Matilda, "I can't think of it, – not yet. It is too good to think of all at once. I have to take part at a time. If I did think of it, I don't know but it would seem too good to be true."
"Well it isn't," said Norton. "Now Pink, we'll fix those hyacinth and tulip beds all right. You haven't chosen your bulbs yet. And then, when we have planted our bulbs – I hope it is not too late yet, but I declare I don't know! – perhaps we'll leave the winter to take care of them, and we'll go off to New York till spring. How would you like that?"
"I don't care where I go," said Matilda, – "with you and Mrs. Laval."
"You never saw New York, did you?"
"No, never. Is it pleasanter than Briery Bank, Norton?"
"Well, not when the tulips are out, perhaps; but in the cold weather it's jolly enough. It's queer, though."
"Queer?" repeated Matilda curiously.
"I wonder if you wouldn't think so," said Norton. "I don't mean New York, you know; that's all right; but our house."
"I didn't know you had a house in New York," said Matilda.
"No, of course not; how should you? but now it's different. Pink, it is very jolly!" said Norton, quitting his seat in the chimney corner and coming down on the rug beside Matilda. "That's a good fire to roast chestnuts."
"Is it? but we haven't any chestnuts to roast," said Matilda.
"That's another thing you don't know," said Norton. "We've got a lot of chestnuts, – splendid ones, too. I'll fetch 'em, and we'll roast some. It's the very best way."
Norton went off for a basket, which proved to be full of brown, plump chestnuts, large and shining as they should be. Sitting down upon the rug again he began to prepare some for roasting, by cutting a small bit off one corner. Matilda picked up these bits of skin and threw them into the fire as fast as they were cut.
"Never mind," said Norton. "We'll sweep 'em up in a heap at the end, and make one job of it."
"But Mr. Richmond might come in."
"Well, – he has seen chestnuts before," said Norton coolly.
"I don't believe he has seen people cutting and roasting them in his study, though."
"All right. We'll give him some."
"But what are you doing that for, Norton?"
"Did you never roast chestnuts, Pink?"
"No. We never had a fireplace, with wood, I mean, in our house."
"It's a good sort of thing to have in any house," said Norton. "I believe I'll have 'em all through my house."
"Your house?"
"Yes. I shall have a house some day; and then you and mamma will live with me."
Matilda could not see the reason for this inversion of arrangements, and she was silent a little while; studying it, without success.
"But what are you cutting these little pieces off for, Norton?"
"Why, they'd fly if I didn't."
"What would fly?"
"Why the chestnuts, Pink! They would fly all over."
"Out of the fire?"
"Yes. Certainly."
"What would make them fly? and how will that hinder it?"
Norton sat back on the rug – he had been bending over to screen his face from the heat of the blaze – and looked at Matilda with very benevolent, laughing eyes.
"Pink, the chestnuts are green."
"Aren't they ripe?" said Matilda. "They look so."
"Yes, yes, they are ripe; but what I mean is, that they are fresh; they are not dry. There is a great deal of water in them."
"Water?" said Matilda.
"Not standing in a pool, you know; but in the juice, or sap, or whatever you call it. Well, you know that fire makes water boil?"
"Yes."
"And when water turns into steam, you know it takes room?"
"Yes, I know," said Matilda.
"Well, that's it. When steam begins to make in the chestnut, the skin won't hold it; and unless I cut a place for it to get out, it will burst the chestnut. And when it bursts, the chestnuts will generally jump."
"Yes, I understand," said Matilda.
"And wherever it jumps to, it will be apt to make a hole in the carpet."
"But, Norton! I should think if the steam made very fast, in a hot place, you know, it might burst the chestnut in spite of the hole you have cut."
"Ay," said Norton. "That does happen occasionally. We'll be on the look-out."
Then he prepared a nice bed of ashes, laid the chestnuts in carefully, and covered them up artistically, first with ashes and then with coals. Matilda watched the process with great interest, and a little wonder what Mr. Richmond would think of it. However, he had said that he was likely to be out for some time, and it was now only half past seven o'clock. The fire burned gently, and the ash-bed of chestnuts looked very promising.
"What was it you said was jolly, when you came and sat down on the rug here, Norton?"
"I don't know."
"You said, 'Pink, it is very jolly!'"
"The fire, I guess. O, I know!" said Norton. "I meant this, Pink; that it is very capital we have got you now, and you belong to us, and whatever we do, we shall do together. I was thinking of that, I know, and of the New York house. Hallo!"
For an uneasy chestnut at this instant made a commotion in the bed of ashes; and presently another leaped clean out. But it was not roasted enough, Norton affirmed, and so was put back.
"What about the New York house?" said Matilda then.
"Why, a good many things, you'll find," said Norton; "and people too. You've got to know about it now. It's my grandmother's house, to begin with. Look out! there's another chestnut."
Matilda wondered that she had never heard of this lady before; though she did not say so.
"It is my grandmother's house," Norton repeated, as he recovered the erring chestnut; "and she would like that we should be there always; but there is more to be said about it. I have an aunt living there; an aunt that married a Jew; her husband is dead, and now she makes her home with my grandmother; she and her two children,