The Runaway Countess

It was actually a fact that we dwellers of this old world lived as in a beautiful well-tempered hot-house, filled with the perfume of flowers. Outside all sorts of horrible things happened, but we saw only confusedly through the overgrown windows, and did not let ourselves be disturbed by them. Yet it is also certain that this greenhouse caused many good attributes to sprout: real love of beauty, genuine culture, selfcontrol (which was inseparable from good manners), but at the same time a certain foreignness to the world, a helplessness in practical matters which was hidden under the cloak of disdain for "business." Yet in our greenhouse the sanguine hand of my grandmother had cleaned a little spot in the glass through which I could look out at the truth, and then as a child I glimpsed the problem of all problems -- riches and poverty -- or what in those days was called the "poor people."

II

THERE were not many poor people in the litt