capital we have got you now, and you belong to us, and
whatever we do, we shall do together. I was thinking of that, I know,
and of the New York house. Hallo!"

For an uneasy chestnut at this instant made a commotion in the bed of
ashes; and presently another leaped clean out. But it was not roasted
enough, Norton affirmed, and so was put back.

"What about the New York house?" said Matilda then.

"Why, a good many things, you'll find," said Norton; "and people too.
You've got to know about it now. It's my grandmother's house, to begin
with. Look out! there's another chestnut."

Matilda wondered that she had never heard of this lady before; though
she did not say so.

"It is my grandmother's house," Norton repeated, as he recovered the
erring chestnut; "and _she_ would like that we should be there always;
but there is more to be said about it. I have an aunt living there; an
aunt that married a Jew; her husband is dead, and now she makes her
home with my grandmother; she and her two children, my cousins."

"Then you have cousins!" Matilda repeated.

"Two Jew cousins. Yes."

"Are _they_ Jews?"

"_She_ isn't, my aunt isn't; but they are. Judith is a real little
Jewess, with eyes as black as a dewberry, and as bright; and
David--well, _he's_ a Jew."

"How old are they?"

"About as old as we are. There's a chestnut, Pink! it went over there."

That chestnut was captured, and kept and eaten; and Matilda said she
had never eaten anything so good in the shape of a chestnut.

"Of course you haven't," said Norton. "That one wasn't done, though. We
must leave them a little while longer."

"And when you're in the city you all live together?" Matilda went on.

"When we are in the city we all live together. And grandmamma never
will leave aunt Judy, and aunt Judy never will come up here; so in the
summer we _don't_ all live together. And I am glad of it."

Matilda wanted very much to ask why, but she did not. Norton presently
went on.

"It is all very well in the winter. But then I am going to school all
the while, and there isn't so much time for things. And I like driving
here better than in the park."

"What is the park?" Matilda inquired.

"You don't know!" exclaimed Norton. "That's good fun. Promise me, Pink,
that you will go with nobody but me the first time. Promise me!"

"Why, whom should I go with, Norton? Who would take me?"

"I don't know. Mamma might, or grandmother might, or aunt Judy.
Promise