"What a child!" exclaimed Mrs. Laval.
"She's got pluck," said Norton, picking up a pin from the floor and energetically giving it a cast into the fire; "she's a brick, she is! I knew that the first day I saw her; but mamma, she is very soft in that spot."
Mrs. Laval looked sober. Perhaps she remembered that the late Mr. Laval had also been soft in that spot, though in an entirely different way. Perhaps she recollected how many variously shaped glasses were needed around his dinner plate, and how he carried about a strong breath and a red face for hours afterward, and how she had been sometimes ever so little ashamed of him. She was now silent.
"Mamma, can't you talk to her?" Norton began again.
"About what?" said Mrs. Laval starting.
"This, ma'am; and make her a little more like other people."
"I would just as lieve she wouldn't drink wine, Norton; or you either."
"Or grandmamma either, mamma?"
"You have nothing to do with that. Your grandmamma is an old lady. I am not talking of grandmamma, but of you."
"Well do you want Matilda to preach temperance, ma'am?"