We had had it rather easy, Margaret and I. We had had every normal advantage of the well-to-do child — sheltered upbringing, school, college, travel, vacations, motors, country clubs, and all the rest. Between us and necessity had always lain the heavy upholstery of our families' care. We had gone our several ways accepting, occasionally demanding. And in our immature years we came to believe, as the overwhelming majority of our complacent class believes, that one's carefully adjusted standards of living must be maintained; that it is a disgrace to be poor; and that most misery and poverty and wretchedness arises from the unthrifty, dirty, and questionable ways of the "ignorant lower classes."