“What! that I do not know what I really am? what can you mean!” exclaimed the girl, yet more astonished than before.
“If you discovered that you were a king’s daughter, would you fret for a ball, or care for a blow?”
“Really, Ernest,” cried Clementina, half curious, half inclined to think him jesting, though he did not look so, “I wish you would speak so that I could understand you.”
“I wish you to look higher, dear cousin; you set your thoughts and your hopes too low, on things far more beneath your real station and privileges than the office of a servant was beneath mine. Are you not the child of the King of kings; is not a mansion in heaven offered to you; may not the white robes and golden crown be preparing for you now; and yet you seem as though you knew not of the bliss set before you—you are content to be a servant?”
“To whom?” interrupted Clementina.
“To the world; and oh, my cousin, the world is a bad master! you have tasted this night what wages it can give; God grant that you know not much more of their bitterness hereafter.”
“Why, Fontonore, what is the matter? why do you speak so?” cried Clementina, looking half frightened at her cousin’s earnest face; for it cost him no small effort to address her thus, and he warmed with his own words as they flowed on.
“I speak thus because I long to see you happy, really happy. Now you are only, as it were, blowing bubbles of pleasure: you touch them and they break, and are gone for ever. Oh, let us seek that which is lasting and sure—that which will be ours when these frail bodies are dust.”