Side tenement-house on a cold winter night, with the mother and her
children huddled about the fire the father had kindled with pieces of the
household furniture?"

"_I_ should object very much, for one," said the lady who had
objected to the account of the surgical operation. "It would be too
creepy. Art should give pleasure."

"Then you think a tragedy is not art?" asked the painter.

"I think that these harrowing subjects are brought in altogether too
much," said the lady. "There are enough of them in real life, without
filling all the novels with them. It's terrible the number of beggars
you meet on the street, this winter. Do you want to meet them in Mr.
Twelvemough's novels, too?"

"Well, it wouldn't cost me any money there. I shouldn't have to give."

"You oughtn't to give money in real life," said the lady. "You ought to
give charity tickets. If the beggars refuse them, it shows they are
impostors."

"It's some comfort to know that the charities are so active," said the
elderly young lady, "even if half the letters one gets _do_ turn out
to be appeals from them."

"It's very disappointing to have them do it, though," said the artist,
lightly. "I thought there was a society to abolish poverty. That doesn't
seem to be so active as the charities this winter. Is it possible they've
found it a failure?"