"I hope you will; but not for my sake. I wish you to keep it, Matilda. It will be useful to you very often. And I shall want to hear how you get on."
He took back the book to put her name in it, while Matilda coloured high, and could hardly find words to speak her thanks. Her teacher smiled at her, escorted her to her own door again, and Matilda went in a happy child.
She was eager now for another chance to talk with David, and she fancied he wished for it too; but demands of school on the one hand, and Norton and Mrs. Laval on the other, for days made it impossible. For Matilda well understood that the matter was not to be openly spoken of, and the opportunity must be private when it came. She studied her new little Bible meanwhile with great assiduity, hoping to prepare herself for David's questions; however, she soon found she could not do that. She could only get familiar with the arrangements of her book; what David might ask or might say, it was impossible to guess.
Meantime Judy's disagreeable attentions continued.
"Why do you not eat your soup, Matilda?" Mrs. Lloyd asked one day. It was Sunday of course; the day when the young folks dined with the old ones.
"It is very hot, grandmamma."
"Hot? mine isn't hot. It is not hot at all; not too hot."
"It is hot with pepper, I think."
"Pepper? There is not pepper enough in it."
Matilda thought that Mrs. Lloyd's palate and her own perhaps perceived pepper differently. But when the first course was served and Matilda had taken curry, of which she was very fond, this was again hot; so sharp, in fact, that she could not eat it.