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Again, when her mother, as an example of the evils of slyness, relates how “the two Misses Quick had pincushions of the same make, but Miss Betty’s was larger than Miss Sally’s,” and Miss Sally by a subterfuge manages to exchange her own for her sister’s, Maria says thoughtfully: “Do you think then, Mamma, that it signifies to God which of the Miss Quicks had the larger pincushion?”

Could the most recent Realist ask a more searching question?

At Christmas time the papers seemed full of descriptions of blasé children who insisted on going to expensive shops to choose their own presents, who scoffed at fairies or Santa Claus, and scouted the idea of any sort of childlike party. I do not move in plutocratic circles, so I cannot vouch for either the truth or falsehood of these dismal revelations. But I do know that the vast majority of gently-bred children born before and during the years that followed 1914 are easily pleased, and are grateful for very small mercies in the way of amusement, because nothing else is possible to the greater part of the upper middle class for financial reasons. And no one who, in recent years, has been to “Peter Pan” and looked round the crowded theatre gloriously garlanded with chubby, rosy faces, and heard the full-throated affirmative that greets the question “Do you believe in fairies?” can doubt that children are still pretty sound on subjects of that sort.