"He is very little and helpless; you must bear many troubles for his sake."
"To care for him is my joy, and to bear him lightens my burden."
"He does not know you, he can do nothing for you."
"But I know him. I have carried him under my heart, he is my son and my king."
"Why do you love him?"
The mother looked up at the sad shepherd with a great reproach in her soft eyes. Then her look grew pitiful as it rested on his face.
"You are a sorrowful man," she said.
"I am a wicked man," he answered.
She shook her head gently.
"I know nothing of that," she said, "but you must be very sorrowful, since you are born of a woman and yet you ask a mother why she loves her child. I love him for love's sake, because God has given him to me."