hem.

They walked on without speaking for a time.

"How did you know the Strattons?" resumed Ned.

"At the picture gallery one Sunday. She was writing some article
defending their being opened on the 'Sawbath' and I had gone in. I like
pictures--some pictures, you know. We got talking and she showed me
things in the pictures I'd never dreamed of before. We stayed there till
closing time and she asked me to come to see her.

"She's immense!"

"I'm so glad you like her. Everybody does."

"Has she any children?"

"Four. Such pretty children. She and her husband are so fond of each
other. I can't imagine people being happier."

"I suppose they're pretty well off, Nellie?"

"No, I don't think they're what you'd call well off. They're comfortable,
you know. She has to put on a sort of style, she's told me, to take the
edge off her ideas. If you wear low-necked dress you can talk the wildest
things, she says, and I think it's so. That's business with her. She has
to mix with low-necked people a little. It's her work."

"Does she have to work?"

"No. I suppose not. But I think she prefers to. She never writes what she
doesn't think, which is pleasanter than most writers find it. Then I
should think she'd feel more independent, however much she cares for her
husband. And then she has a little girl who's wonderfully clever at
colours, so she's saving up to send her to Paris when she's old enough.
They think she'll become a great painter--the little girl, I mean."

"What does that Josie do?"

"She's a music-teacher."

"They're all clever, aren't they?"

"Yes. But, of course, they've all had a chance. Ford is the most
remarkable. He never got any education to speak of until he was over 20.
The Strattons have been born as they live now. They've had some hard
times, I think, from what they say now and then, but they've always been
what's called 'cultured.' Everybody ought to be as they are."

"I think so, too, Nellie, but can everybody be as well off as they are?"

"They're not well off, I told you, Ned. If they spend L5 a week it's as
much as they do. Of course that sounds a lot, but since if things were
divided fairly everybody who works ought to get far more, it's not
extravagant riches. Wine and water doesn't cost more than beer, and the
things they've got were picked up bit by bit. It's what they've got and
the way it's put that looks so nice. There's nothing but what's pretty,
and she is always adding somet