"I mean just what I said--that I didn't know."

"You are going to leave Mrs. Higgs and her friends, then?" asked Max, in
a tone between doubt and hope.

"Yes."

She made this answer rather by a motion of the head than by her voice.

"Well, I am very glad to hear it--very glad."

"Are you? I'm not. Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful to lose one's home, any
sort of home."

"But could you call that a home? A hole like that? Among people like
this Mrs. Higgs and this Dick!"

"Oh, poor Dick! If they had all been like him it would not have
mattered."

"What! A pickpocket!" cried Max in disgust.

"What difference did that make? Do you suppose the wives and daughters
of the men in the city, financiers and the rest, love them the less
because they pass their lives trying to get the better of other people?
Isn't it just as dishonest to issue a false prospectus to get people to
put their money into worthless companies as to steal a watch? It's
nonsense to pretend it isn't."