"You are not changed," she said.
Changed in what? Matilda wondered; and she looked to see what she could make out in David Bartholomew. He was not so dark as his sister; he had rich brown hair; and the black eyes were not snapping and sparkling like hers, but large, lustrous, proud, and rather gloomy, it seemed to the little stranger's fancy. She looked away again; she did not like him. In another minute they were called to dinner.
It was but to walk across the hall, and Matilda found herself seated at the most imposing board she had ever beheld. Certainly everything at Mrs. Laval's table was beautiful and costly; but there it had been only a table for two or three; no company, and the simplest way of the house. Here there was a good tableful, and a large table; and the sparkle of glass and silver quite dazzled the child's unaccustomed eyes. How much silver, and what brilliant and beautiful glass! She wondered at the profusion of forks by her own plate, and almost thought the waiter must have made a mistake; but she saw Norton was as well supplied. The lights, and the flowers, and the fruit in the centre of the table, and the gay silks and laces around it, and all the appointments of the elegant room, almost bewildered Matilda. Yet she thought it was very pleasant too, and extremely pretty; and discovered that eating dinner was a great deal more of a pleasure when the eyes could be so gratified at the same time with the taste. However, soup was soup, she found, to a hungry little girl.
"Pink," said Norton, after he had swallowed his soup,—"where do you think we will go first?" Norton had got a seat beside her and spoke in a confidential whisper.
"I am going with your mother to-morrow," Matilda returned in an answering whisper. "So she said."
"That won't tire you out," said Norton. "After she goes, or before she goes, you and I will go. Where first?"
"You and I alone?" said Matilda softly.
"Alone!"
"Norton," said Matilda very softly, "I think I want to go first of all to the shoemaker's."
Norton had nearly burst out into a laugh, but he crammed his napkin against his face.