"Norton's head was too full," said Esther with another movement of her head that struck Matilda very much; it was quite like a grown-up young lady; and gave Matilda the notion that she thought a good deal of Norton. "Yes; we are cousins; that is why he told me to take care of you."
Matilda was tempted to say that Norton would save her that trouble as soon as he was at leisure to take it upon himself; but she did not. Instead, she asked Esther how old she had been when she began to take dancing lessons?
"I don't know; three and a half, I believe."
The deficiency of Matilda's own education pressed upon her heavily. She was a little afraid to go on, for fear of laying bare some other want.
"Yes," said Esther after another interval of being absorbed in what was going on in the next room;—"yes; of course, you know I began to learn to dance as soon as I began to wear—stays," she uttered in a whisper, and went on aloud. "The two things together. O yes; I was almost four years old."
Here she broke off to speak to some one passing, and Matilda was lost in wonderment again. A little uneasy too; for though the young lady kept her post at the side of the charge Norton had given her, and evidently meant to keep it, Matilda thought she had an air of finding her office rather a bore. A young lady who had danced and worn stays from the time she was four years old, must necessarily know so much of life and the world that a little ignoramus of a country girl would be a bore.
"What are they going to do then to-night, if we are not to dance?" resumed Esther when her friend had passed on. "Just have the Christmas tree and nothing else?"
Nothing else but a Christmas tree! Here was an experience!
"Norton and David are going to make a play," said Matilda; "acting a proverb."
"Oh!" said Esther. "A proverb! David is a good player, and Norton too; excellent; that will be very good. I thought I heard something about a witch; what is that?"