James Hancock opened his mouth at these sage utterances, and then shut it again and turned away to smile. Bridgewater had the bad manners to scratch his head. Miss Hancock said, "Indeed?"
"Don't you think so?"
"I think the world is exactly what we choose to make it," said Patience Hancock, quoting Bulders.
"You think that?" said Fanny, suddenly forgetting her fine lady languors. "Well, I wish some one would show me how to make the world just as I'd choose to make it. Oh, it would be such a world—no poor people, and no rain, and no misery, and no debts."
"You mean no debtors," said Patience, seizing her opportunity. "It is the debtors that make debts, just as it is the drunken people who make drunkenness."
"Yes, I suppose it is," said Fanny, suddenly abandoning her argumentative tone for one of reverie. "It's the people in the world that make it so horrid and so nice."
"That's exactly it," said Hancock, who was standing on the hearthrug listening to these banalities of thought, and contemplating Bridgewater. "Miss Lambert is a true philosopher. It is the people who make the world what it is; could we banish the meddlers and spies and traitors"—he looked fixedly at his sister—"the world would not be an unpleasant place to live in."
"I hate spies," said Fanny, totally unconscious of the delicate ground she was stepping upon—"people who poke about into other people's business, and open letters, and that sort of thing." Miss Hancock flushed scarlet, and her brother noted the fact. "James opens letters, I caught him."
"Who is James?" asked Miss Hancock.