'Didn't I say all good families are very much the same?'

'What did you do in summer?' said Una. 'Play about, like us?'

'Yes, and we visited our friends. There are no wolves in Vectis. We had
many friends, and as many ponies as we wished.'

'It must have been lovely,' said Una. 'I hope it lasted for ever.'

'Not quite, little maid. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, the
Father felt gouty, and we all went to the Waters.'

'What waters?'

'At Aquae Solis. Every one goes there. You ought to get your Father to
take you some day.'

'But where? I don't know,' said Una.

The young man looked astonished for a moment. 'Aquae Solis,' he
repeated. 'The best baths in Britain. just as good, I'm told, as Rome.
All the old gluttons sit in hot water, and talk scandal and politics.
And the Generals come through the streets with their guards behind them;
and the magistrates come in their chairs with their stiff guards behind
them; and you meet fortune-tellers, and goldsmiths, and merchants, and
philosophers, and feather-sellers, and ultra-Roman Britons, and
ultra-British Romans, and tame tribesmen pretending to be civilised, and
Jew lecturers, and--oh, everybody interesting. We young people, of
course, took no interest in politics. We had not the gout: there were
many of our age like us. We did not find life sad.