"Yes, dear mistress."
"And thou dost love him very dearly?"
"Ah, so dearly," murmured the little maid, with quivering lips.
"Poor child, thy young life has known much sorrow," said Claudia, pityingly. "And, yet, thou thinketh more of the sorrows of others than of thy own."
"My heart is sad at times," said Leah. "But I must not rebel against the will of the good God."
"And is this why thou dost bear so patiently and unmurmuringly the sorrows which have darkened thy young life?" asked Claudia, wonderingly. "But the gods are wont to send afflictions upon those who offend them, thou canst not have offended thy God."
"God, in His wisdom, doth often afflict those whom He loveth," said Leah.
Claudia smiled.
"This God of thine is a strange God," she said.
