ueen, Mr. Dillwyn."

"What do you do with them?"

"O, take care of them. It's very simple. They understand that whenever
they are in absolute need of it, they can go to the store and get what
they want."

"At whose expense?"

"O, there is a fund there for them. Some of the better-off people take
care of that."

"I should think that would be quite too simple," said Mrs. Wishart,
"and extremely liable to abuse."

"It is never abused, though. Some of the people, those poor ones, will
come as near as possible to starving before they will apply for
anything."

Mrs. Wishart remarked that Shampuashuh was altogether unlike all other
places she ever had heard of.

"Things at Shampuashuh are as they ought to be," Mr. Dillwyn said.

"Now, Mr. Dillwyn," cried Madge, "I will forgive you for taking my
queen, if you will answer a question for me. What is 'art criticism'?"

"Why, Madge, you know!" said Lois from her sofa corner.

"I do not admire ignorance so much as to pretend to it," Madge
rejoined. "What is art criticism, Mr. Dillwyn?"

"What is art?"

"That is what I do not know!" said Madge, laughing. "I understand
criticism. It is the art that bothers me. I only know that it is
something as far from nature as possible."

"O Madge, Madge!" said Lois again; and Mr. Dillwyn laughed a little.

"On the contrary, Miss Madge. Your learning must be unlearnt. Art is
really so near to nature--Check!--that it consists in giving again the
facts and effects of nature in human language."

"Human language? That is, letters and words?"

"Those are the symbols of one language."

"What other is there?"

"Music--painting--architecture---- I am afraid, Miss Madge, that is
check-mate?"

"You said you had seen and heard something, Mr. Dillwyn," Mrs. Wishart
now began. "Do tell us what. I have neither seen nor heard anything in
an age."

Mr. Dillwyn was setting the chessmen again.

"What I saw," he said, "was a silk necktie--or scarf--such as we wear.
What I heard, was the price paid for making it."

"Was there anything remarkable about the scarf?"

"Nothing whatever; except the aforesaid price."

"What _was_ the price paid for making it?"

"Two cents."

"Who told you?"

"A friend of mine, who took me in on purpose that I might see and hear,
what I have reported."

"_Two cents_, did you say? But that's no price!"

"So I thought."

"How many could a woman make in a day, Madge, of those silk scarfs?"

"I don't