spirit of the poor nowadays. I pay 'em wages that would have been
thought enormous a hundred years ago, but are they satisfied? Not on
your life!..."

Winter sunshine, filtering in through cream-colored curtains, touched
upon those refinements with which the prosperous 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_.