“And hadst thou some soup yesterday?”
“Yes—no—Oh, I am older; I can wait better than the little ones. The mother is sick: she and the babes must not wait. It does not signify for me.”
Oh, how hungered were those great eyes, that looked too large for the white face! The very name of soup seemed to have brought the craving look therein.
I turned to the small. “Tell me, Iolande, had Hilda any of the soup yesterday?”
“No,” said the child; “I and Madeleine drank it, every drop, that our mother left.”
“And had Hilda nothing?”
“There was a mouldy crust in the cupboard,” said the child. “It had dropped behind the cup, and Hilda found it when she took the cup down. We could not see it behind. We can only just reach to take the cup down, and put it up again. That was what Hilda had, and she wiped the cup with one end of it.”
“The cup that had held the soup?”
“Yes, surely,” said the child, with a surprised look. “We only have one,—does not Madame know?”
“It is an esquelle (porringer; a shallow bowl), not a cup,” said Hilda, reddening a little: “the child hardly knows the difference.”