"Harm! but of course they do harm. The very idea of thirty working-people, with their heavy boots, and their dinner in a basket, and smoking, no doubt!"
"That is bad," said Dick. "Wilberforce and I did nothing of that kind. We only made explorations in the ruins, and used a little tobacco to keep off the bad air. The air in the guard-room was close, and Georgie had a puff at a cigarette, but only with a sanitary view. And our dinner was in a hamper; there are distinctions. By the way, it was not dinner at all; it was only lunch."
"And we, I hope, Mr. Cavendish, are very different from——"
"Oh, very different. We have most things we wish to have, and live in nice houses, and have gardens of our own, and woods to walk in."
"That is quite true," said Minnie; "and we have always been Liberal,—not against the people, as the Conservatives are; but still it cannot be good to teach them to be discontented with what they have. We should all be contented with what we've got. If it had not been the best for us, it would not have been chosen for us."
"Perhaps we had better not go into the abstract question, Minnie. I suppose, Mr. Cavendish, you go back to Oxford after the vacation?"
"For hard work," he said, with a laugh. "I am such an old fellow I have no time to lose. I am not an honour man, like Warrender."
"And you, Theo,—you are going too?" said the rector.
Warrender woke up as out of a dream. "I have not made up my mind. Perhaps I shall, perhaps not; it is not of much importance."
"Not of much importance! Your first class——"