But this was a part of the ups and downs of their life, and one and all they accepted the condition cheerfully, for who, they said, does not have to endure privations now and again? And they had always done very well in other years, and the needs of life are small; and so they had no complaint to make. Comfort and privation are, after all, measured largely by contrast, and what to them would have been comfortable and luxurious living would have seemed to you and me little less than unendurable hardship.