"But you do not think, I hope, that one is a pattern for all?" said Mrs. Barclay. "There are exceptions; it is not everybody in the great world that lives to no purpose."
"If that's what you call the great world, I call it mighty small, then. If I didn't know anything better to do with myself than to work sprangles o' gold on a satin cover that warn't to cover nothin', I'd go down to Fairhaven and hire myself out to open oysters! and think I made by the bargain. Anyhow, I'd respect myself better."
"I don't know what you mean by the great world," said uncle Tim. "Be there two on 'em—a big and a little?"
"Don't you see, all Shampuashuh would go in one o' those houses Lois was tellin' about! and if it got there, I expect they wouldn't give it house-room."
"The worlds are not so different as you think," Mrs. Barclay went on courteously. "Human nature is the same everywhere."
"Well, I guess likely," responded Mrs. Marx. "Mother, if you've done, we'll go into the other."
CHAPTER XXVI.
SCRUPLES.
The next day was Christmas; but in the country of Shampuashuh, Christmas, though a holiday, was not held in so high regard as it receives in many other quarters of the earth. There was no service in the church; and after dinner Lois came as usual to draw in Mrs. Barclay's room.
"I did not understand some of your aunt's talk last evening," Mrs.
Barclay remarked after a while.