MADELEINE. But what can he find to say to working-men about all that? That they ought to have large families?

LUCIE. That’s it.

MADELEINE. Of course, I know nothing about it, but I should think the best way to encourage them was not to let the children they have already perish of want.

LUCIE. Just what I tell Julien. It’s the rich who ought to have children.

MADELEINE. So I think.

LUCIE. You’re rich—why have you only got one, then?

MADELEINE. That’s another question. Don’t let’s talk about that. Talk of something cheery.

JOSEPHINE [entering] If you please, ma’am, Catherine is here.

LUCIE. Ask her to come in. [To Madeleine] It’s ever so long since I’ve seen nursie.

Josephine shews in Catherine, a working-woman of forty, dressed simply and very neatly in a black cloak and bonnet.