"Why I cannot help it, Norton; but if everybody that is rich chose, they could help it."
"How?"
"Don't you think they ought?"
"Well how, Pink? If people were industrious and behaved right, they wouldn't be poor, you see."
"Oh, but, Norton, they would sometimes. There is Mrs. Eldridge, and there are the poor women at Mrs. Rogers', and a great many more like them."
"Well if somebody hadn't behaved wrong," said Norton, "they wouldn't be so hard up."
"Oh, but that does not help them."
"Not much."
"And they ought to be helped," said Matilda, slowly examining the painted flowers on the china in her hand, and remembering Mrs. Eldridge's cracked delf tea-cup.
"That plate would buy up the whole concern where we were yesterday, wouldn't it?"