"Wait, little Princess. The King's daughter is distrusting her Father, and pitying herself, Sylvia. That's low thinking, child."
"Of course I pity myself," the girl flashed back, "and ten times more since Miss Derwent came, taking possession of you, and Aunt Martha, and Uncle Calvin. She has everything. Why should she, while I have nothing?"
In the silence that followed Sylvia could see the patient lines in her companion's forehead, and the shining of his deep eyes.
"Except you," she added contritely, clasping her hands around his shabby coat sleeve, "I have you, but it kills me to cling to you like a drowning man, while that girl smiles at you from the top of the wave,—and owns everybody and everything!"
"Edna does some very good thinking," was the quiet response. "Her temptations are different from yours, and she has struggled with them."
"What has she to bear?"
"Sickness,—not her own, but that of dear ones, and an overdose of wealth."
"Oh!" The exclamation was scornful and skeptical.
"You remember the tale where the members of a community by common agreement met in the city's public square, and each one laid down his burden, and taking up some one else's went home with it? The story runs that on the following day every man and woman returned to discard the new burden and take up his own again. Supposing Edna took yours"—
Sylvia broke in: "She would be a girl who is a stranger in a strange land with no rights anywhere; whose nearest ones cast her off; who has no future, no money, no home, no plans. A girl who doesn't know how to clear a table or wash a dish in her cousin's house, while a strange girl comes in and takes charge of everything. I didn't even know how to kiss you!"