"O a great many things. But they can't get the things, David; they don't want ways to cook them."
"Must be a bad thing to be so poor," said David.
"Mustn't it! And there are so many. It is dreadful."
"Don't seem to me it ought to be," said David.
"That is what I think," said Matilda. "And O David,—don't laugh at me as Norton does,—it seems to me it needn't be. If other people would do without having everything, these people need not want everything."
David did smile, though, at Matilda's summary way of equalizing things.
"What would you be willing to go without?" he asked. "Come, Tilly; what of all we have had to-day?"
"A great deal," said the little political economist steadily.
"Meringues and bananas? for instance."
"Why yes, David, and so would you, if it was to give somebody else a dinner."