AUNT ISABEL: (_taking the dish_) Do you _use_ them?--the old Hungarian dishes? (_laughingly_) I'm not allowed to--your uncle is so choice of the few pieces we have. And here are you with fudge in one of them. MADELINE: I made the fudge because--oh, I don't know, I had to do something to celebrate my birthday. AUNT ISABEL: (_under her breath_) Dearie! MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to--make a birthday, so I happened to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered that it was my mother's. It was nice to get it down and use it--almost as if mother was giving me a birthday present. AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday present. MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it from Hungary. AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, and left--oh, so many beautiful ones behind. MADELINE: (_quietly_) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? (_her aunt waits inquiringly_) To leave their own beautiful things--their own beautiful life behind--simply because they believed life should be more beautiful for more people. AUNT ISABEL: (_with constraint_) Yes. (_gayly turning it_) Well, now, as to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is doing this instant? Putting red frosting on white frosting, (_writing it with her finger_) Madeline. And what do you suppose Horace is doing? (_this a little reproachfully_) Running around buying twenty-one red candles. Twenty-two--one to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night. MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there. AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and all pull together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather than see you--left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as worried, and--truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these human things that count! What would life be without the love we have for each other? MADELINE: The love we have for each other? AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me Madeline. Don't--don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how your uncle has worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be a little generous to him. He's had this great burden of bringing something from another day on into this day. It is not as simple as it may seem. He's done it as best he could. It will hurt him as nothing has ever hurt him if you now undo that work of his life. Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough about it to do that? Another thing: people are a little absurd out of their own places. We need to be held in our relationships--against our background--or we are--I don't know--grotesque. Come now, Madeline, where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little absurd for you to leave home over India's form of government? MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is nothing to hide behind!