‘“Politics” is a broad word, Marcia,’ he returned, with a slight frown; ‘and when it stands for oppression and injustice and starving peasants it has to be taken seriously.’ ‘Is it really so bad, Uncle Howard?’ ‘Good heavens, Marcia! It’s awful!’ She was startled at his tone, and glanced up at him quickly. He was staring at the light, with a hard look in his eyes and his mouth drawn into a straight line. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Howard; I didn’t know. What can I do?’ ‘What can any of us do?’ he asked bitterly. ‘We can give one day, and it’s eaten up before night. And we can keep on giving, but what does it amount to? The whole thing is rotten from the bottom.’ ‘Can’t the people get work?’ ‘No; and when they can, their earnings are eaten up in taxes. The people in the southern provinces are literally starving, I tell you; and it’s worse this year than usual, thanks to men like your father and me.’ ‘What do you mean?’ For a moment he felt almost impelled to tell her the truth. Then, as he glanced down at her, he stopped himself quickly. She looked so delicate, so patrician, so aloof from everything that was sordid and miserable; she could not help, and it was better that she should not know. ‘What do you mean?’ she repeated. ‘What has papa been doing?’ ‘Oh, nothing very criminal,’ he returned. ‘Only at a time like this one feels as if one’s money were a reproach. Italy’s in a bad way just now; the wheat crop failed last year, and that makes it inconvenient for people who live on macaroni.’ ‘Do you mean the people really haven’t anything to eat?’ ‘Not much.’ ‘How terrible, Uncle Howard! Won’t the government do anything?’ ‘The government is doing what it can. There was a riot in Florence last month, and they lowered the grain tax; King Humbert gave nine thousand lire to feed the people of Pisa a couple of weeks ago. You can do the same for some other city, if you want to play at being a princess.’ ‘I thought you believed in finding them work instead giving them money.’ ‘Oh, as a matter of principle, certainly. But you can’t have ’em dying on your door-step, you know.’ ‘And to think we’re having a dinner to-night, when we’re not the slightest bit hungry!’ ‘I’m afraid our dinner wouldn’t go far toward feeding the hungry in Italy.’ ‘How does my dress look, my dear?’ asked Mrs. Copley, appearing in the doorway. ‘I have been so bothered over it; she didn’t fix the lace at all as I told her. These Italian dressmakers are not to be depended upon. I really should have run up to Paris for a few weeks this spring, only you were so unwilling, Howard.’ Marcia looked at her aunt a moment with wide-open eyes. ‘Heavens!’ she thought, ‘do I usually talk this way? No wonder Mr. Sybert doesn’t like me!’ And then she laughed. ‘I think it looks lovely, Aunt Katherine, and I am sure it is very becoming.’