"Well, I like to have a few people to play with. You know I have only Julius Cæsar, and he won't always play. But I was going to ask you something about the Brady family, Aunt Caroline. Why do we have such lots and lots of money and they none at all?"
"Elizabeth, you are too absurd!"
"But why?"
"I—I don't exactly know. They are of a very different class of life, for one thing. Their ancestors—if they had any—were poor men, I suppose, while ours were rich."
"I don't think that explains it. And I am sure they are terribly hungry half the time. They look so. Tom doesn't—"
"Again I must beg you to stop, Elizabeth. I do not care to hear all this at the dinner table. It quite takes away my appetite."
"I am very sorry, Aunt Caroline. Then I will stop. But I was only going to say, don't you think it would be nicer and evener all round if we were to give them some of our money and a nice house to live in? We could easily do it."
"Bless me, what socialistic notions the child has!" cried her aunt Rebecca. "Encouraging pauperism in this style!"
"What is porprism?" asked Elizabeth, turning quickly.
"Don't ask another question, I beg of you! You have used twenty interrogation points at least since we sat down to dinner."