re three of us, my
mother and my father and myself. Everything in our lives was very
perfectly ordered. We were not very rich--not in the modern sense, and
we were not very poor, and we knew a lot of nice people. I went to
school with girls of my own kind, an exclusive school. I went away
summers to our own cottage in an exclusive North Shore colony. We took
our servants with us. After my mother died I went to boarding-school,
and to Europe in summer, and when my school days were ended, and I
acquired a stepmother, I set up an apartment of my own. It has
Florentine things in it, and Byzantine things, and things from China
and Japan, and the colors shine like jewels under my lamps--you know the
effect. And my kitchen is all in white enamel, and the cook does things
by electricity, and when I go away in summer my friends have Italian
villas--like the Watermans, on the North Shore, although all of my
friends are not like the Watermans." She threw this last out casually,
not as a criticism, but that he might, it seemed, withhold judgment of
her present choice of associates. "And I have never known the world of
good cheer that Dickens writes about--wide kitchens, and teakettles
singing and crickets chirping and everybody busy with things that
interest them. Do you know that there are really no bored people in
Dickens except a few aristocrats? None of the poor people are bored.
They may be unhappy, but there's always some recompense in a steaming
drink or savory stew, or some gay little festivity;--even the vagabonds
seem to get something out of life. I realize perfectly that I've never
had the thrills from a bridge game that came to the Marchioness when she
played cards with Dick Swiveller--by stealth."

She talked rapidly, charmingly. He could not be sure how much in earnest
she might be--but she made out her case and continued her argument.

"When I was a child I walked on gray velvet carpets, and there were
etchings on the wall, and chilly mirrors between the long windows in
the drawing-room. And the kitchen was in the basement and I never went
down. There wasn't a cozy spot anywhere. None of us were cozy, my mother
wasn't. She was very lovely and sparkling and went out a great deal and
my father sparkled too. He still does. But there was really nothing to
draw us together--like the Cratchits or even the Kenwigs. And we were
never comfortable and merry like all of these lovely people in
Pickwick."

She went on wistfull