style="font-size:15px;"> "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, my cousins."
"Then you have cousins!" Matilda repeated.
"Two Jew cousins. Yes."
"Are they Jews?"
"She isn't, my aunt isn't; but they are. Judith is a real little Jewess, with eyes as black as a dewberry, and as bright; and David – well, he's a Jew."
"How old are they?"
"About as old as we are. There's a chestnut, Pink! it went over there."
That chestnut was captured, and kept and eaten; and Matilda said she had never eaten anything so good in the shape of a chestnut.
"Of course you haven't," said Norton. "That one wasn't done, though. We must leave them a little while longer."
"And when you're in the city you all live together?" Matilda went on.
"When we are in the city we all live together. And grandmamma never will leave aunt Judy, and aunt Judy never will come up here; so in the summer we don't all live together. And I am glad of it."
Matilda wanted very much to ask why, but she did not. Norton presently went on.
"It is all very well in the winter. But then I am going to school all the while, and there isn't so much time for things. And I like driving here better than in the park."
"What is the park?" Matilda inquired.
"You don't know!" exclaimed Norton. "That's good fun. Promise me, Pink, that you will go with nobody but me the first time. Promise me!"
"Why, whom should I go with, Norton? Who would take me?"
"I don't know. Mamma might, or grandmother might, or aunt Judy. Promise, Pink."
"Well, I will not, if I can help it," said Matilda. "But how funny it is that I should be making you such a promise."
"Ay, isn't it?" said Norton. "There will be a good many such funny things, you'll find."
"But how are these cousins of yours Jews, Norton, when their mother is not a Jew?"
"Jewess," said Norton. "Why, because their father was, – a Jew, I mean. He was a Spanish Jew; and my aunt and cousins have lived in Spain till three years ago. How should a boy with his name, David Bartholomew, be anything but a Jew?"
"Bartholomew is English, isn't it?"
"Yes, the name. O they are not Spaniards entirely; only the family has lived out there for ever so long. They have relations enough in New York. I wish they hadn't."
"But how are they Jews, Norton?
