perous civilize and decorate
the brutal need: upon silver, growing flowers, glittering glass,
agreeable open spaces, and fine old mahogany. It was an exceptionally
pleasant room. The Heths might be "improbable people," as Mrs. Berkeley
Page was known to have said on a certain occasion and gone unrebuked,
but their material taste was clearly above reproach. And all this was to
their credit, proving efficiency in the supreme art, that of living. For
the Heths, of course, were not rich at all as the word means nowadays:
they were far indeed from being the richest people in that town. Their
merit it was that they spent all they had, and sometimes a little more;
and few persons lived who could surpass Mrs. Heth in getting a dollar's
worth of results for each dollar expended....

Carlisle and her father chatted pleasantly about the remarkable spirit
of the poor, and the world's maudlin sentiment towards it and them. The
lovely maid professed herself completely puzzled by these problems.

"We're always giving them money," she pointed out, spooning a light
dessert in a tall glass, "or getting up bazaars for them, or sending
them clothes that have lots more wear in them. And what do they do in
return, besides grumble and riot and strike and always ask for more? And
they stay poor just the same. What is going to happen, papa?"

Mr. Heth lit a cigar--not one of the famous Heth Plantation Cheroots.
He requested Cally not to ask _him_.

"Never be satisfied," said he, "till they strip us of everything we've
worked our lives away earning. They'll ride in our motor-cars and we'll
sit in their workhouse. That'll be nice, won't it? How'll plain little
girls like that, eh?"

She was the apple of papa's eye; and she rather enjoyed hearing him talk
of his manifold business activities, which was a thing he was not too
often encouraged to do. To-day the master of the Works was annoyed into
speech by recent nagging: not merely from the Commissioner of Labor, but
from the Building Inspector, who had informally stopped him on the
street that morning....

"Don't you think, papa," Carlisle said sweetly, "that it will all end in
something like the French Revolution?"

Mr. Heth thought it extremely likely.

"Well," said he, "I shan't be bothered by their college folderol.
O'Neill's easy enough managed. All I need to do is invite him and Missus
O. to dinner."

"Who's O'Neill?" demanded Mrs. Heth, gliding in.

For the second time during th