"We do great wrong," he said to himself--"We who are richer than what are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of course, be had in every well-ordered household--but too many of them constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble. Here again comes in the crucial question--Why do we spend all our best years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!" At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre" teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs. "Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an' incloodid in the bill," she announced glibly--"An' 'opes you've got all ye want." Helmsley looked at her kindly. "You're a smart little girl!" he said. "Beginning to earn your own living already, eh?" "Lor', that aint much!" retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table than they originally were. "I lives on nothin' scarcely, though I'm turned fifteen an' likes a bit o' fresh pork now an' agen. But I've got a brother as is on'y ten, an' when 'e aint at school 'e's earnin' a bit by gatherin' mussels on the beach, an' 'e do collect a goodish bit too, though 'taint reg'lar biziness, an' 'e gets hisself into such a pickle o' salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin' or two." "And who is your mother?" asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the table and sitting down. "Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from 'ere across the moor," replied Prue. "She goes out a-charing, but it's 'ard for 'er to be doin' chars now--she's gettin' old an' fat--orful fat she be gettin'. Dunno what we'll do if she goes on fattenin'." It was difficult not to laugh at this statement, Prue's eyes were so round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out his tea. "Have you no father?" "No, never 'ad," declared Prue, quite jubilantly. "'E droonk 'isself to death an' tumbled over a cliff near 'ere one dark night an' was drowned!" This, with the most thrilling emphasis. "That's very sad! But you can't say you never had a father," persisted Helmsley. "You had him before he was drowned?"