"I couldn't, Norton. Aunt Candy told me to bring it myself."
"What sort of a person is she? your aunt, who keeps you so close? She ain't much count, is she?"
"Oh hush, Norton!" said Matilda. "Don't, somebody will hear you."
"Do you like her?"
"I do not like to talk about her, Norton."
"Is she good to you?"
"Don't ask me, Norton, please. Now we are almost there; please let me have the bundle. I don't want you to come to the house."
Matilda looked so earnest, Norton gave her bundle up without another word, and stood looking after her till she had got into the house. Then he turned and went straight to his mother and told her the whole story; all he knew, and all he didn't know.
The end of which was, that the next day Mrs. Laval called to see Mrs. Candy.
Now this was particularly what Mrs. Candy had wished to bring about, and did not know how. She went to the parlour with secret exultation, and an anxious care to make the visit worth all it could be. No doubt Mrs. Laval had become convinced by what she had seen and heard, that Mrs. Candy and her daughter were not just like everybody else, and concluded them to be fit persons for her acquaintance. But yet the two confronted each other on unequal ground. Mrs. Candy was handsomely dressed, no doubt; from her cap to her shoe, everything had cost money enough; "why can't I throw it on like that?" was her uneasy mental reflection the minute after she was seated. She felt as if it clung about her like armour; while her visitor's silks and laces fell about her as carelessly as a butterfly's wings; as if they were part of herself indeed. And her speech, when she spoke, it had the same easy grace—or the carelessness of power; was it that? thought Mrs. Candy.