She nodded. "Yes. I never have. My world has always been--cut and dried, conventional, you know the kind." The slender hand with the amethyst ring made a little gesture of disdain. "There were three of us, my mother and my father and myself. Everything in our lives was very perfectly ordered. We were not very rich--not in the modern sense, and we were not very poor, and we knew a lot of nice people. I went to school with girls of my own kind, an exclusive school. I went away summers to our own cottage in an exclusive North Shore colony. We took our servants with us. After my mother died I went to boarding-school, and to Europe in summer, and when my school days were ended, and I acquired a stepmother, I set up an apartment of my own. It has Florentine things in it, and Byzantine things, and things from China and Japan, and the colors shine like jewels under my lamps--you know the effect. And my kitchen is all in white enamel, and the cook does things by electricity, and when I go away in summer my friends have Italian villas--like the Watermans, on the North Shore, although all of my friends are not like the Watermans." She threw this last out casually, not as a criticism, but that he might, it seemed, withhold judgment of her present choice of associates. "And I have never known the world of good cheer that Dickens writes about--wide kitchens, and teakettles singing and crickets chirping and everybody busy with things that interest them. Do you know that there are really no bored people in Dickens except a few aristocrats? None of the poor people are bored. They may be unhappy, but there's always some recompense in a steaming drink or savory stew, or some gay little festivity;--even the vagabonds seem to get something out of life. I realize perfectly that I've never had the thrills from a bridge game that came to the Marchioness when she played cards with Dick Swiveller--by stealth." She talked rapidly, charmingly. He could not be sure how much in earnest she might be--but she made out her case and continued her argument. "When I was a child I walked on gray velvet carpets, and there were etchings on the wall, and chilly mirrors between the long windows in the drawing-room. And the kitchen was in the basement and I never went down. There wasn't a cozy spot anywhere. None of us were cozy, my mother wasn't. She was very lovely and sparkling and went out a great deal and my father sparkled too. He still does. But there was really nothing to draw us together--like the Cratchits or even the Kenwigs. And we were never comfortable and merry like all of these lovely people in Pickwick." She went on wistfully, "When I was nine, I found these little books in our library and after that I enjoyed vicariously the life I had never lived. That's why I like it here--Mrs. Flippin's kettle sings--and the crickets chirp--and Mr. and Mrs. Flippin are comfortable--and cozy--and content."