ion. I was studying about Chaldaean bricks lately.
They were a foot square and two or three inches thick; and if they were
not well baked they would not stand much, you know."

"What nonsense you are talking!" said Judith scornfully.

"Some of those bricks were not nonsense, for they have lasted four
thousand years. That's what I call--a brick!"

"You wouldn't know it if you saw it though," David remarked.

"You shut up!" said Norton. "Some of your ancestors made them for
Nebuchadnezzar."

"Some of my ancestors were over the whole province of Babylon," said
David. "But _that_ was not four thousand years ago."

"When I get back as far as Nebuchadnezzar," said Norton shutting his
eyes, as if in the effort at abstraction, "I have got as far as I can
go. The stars of history beyond that seem to me all at one distance."

"They do not seem so to me," said David. "It was long before
Nebuchadnezzar that Solomon reigned; and the Jews were an old people
then."

"I know!" said Norton. "Nothing can match you but the Celestials. After
all, Noah's three sons all came out of the ark together."

"But the nations of Ham are all gone," said David; "and the nations of
Japhet are all changing."

"This fellow's dreadful on history?" said Norton to Matilda. "I used to
_think_," he went on as the coloured waiter just then came in with
coffee, "I used to _think_ there were some of Ham's children left yet."

"But not a nation," said David.

The one of Ham's children in question came round to them at this
minute, and the talk was interrupted by the business of cream and
sugar. The four children were all round the coffee tray, when Mrs.
Laval's voice was heard calling Matilda. Matilda went across the room
to her.

"Are they giving you coffee, my darling?" said Mrs. Laval, putting her
arm round her.

"I was just going to have some."

"I don't want you to take it. Will it seem very hard to deny yourself?"

"Why no," said Matilda; then with an effort,--"No, mamma; not if you
wish me to let it alone."

"I do. I don't want this delicate colour on your cheek," and she
touched it as she spoke, "to grow thick and muddy; I want the skin to
be as fair and clear as it is now."

"Norton takes coffee," said Mrs. Bartholomew.

"I know. Norton is a boy. It don't matter."

"Judy!" Mrs. Bartholomew called across the room, "Judy! don't _you_
touch coffee."

"It's so hot mamma, I don't touch it. I swallow it without touching. It
goes rig