"Tell me one thing before I go," said Clementina: "are we not commanded to bear each other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ? I read it to-day."
"Then why ask me?"
"For another question: does not that involve the command to those who have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?"
"Surely, my lady. But I have no burden to let you bear."
"Why should I have everything and you nothing? Answer me that."
"My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been gathering the crumbs under my Master's table for thirty years."
"You are a king," answered Clementina. "But a king needs a handmaiden somewhere in his house: that let me be in yours. No, I will be proud, and assert my rights: I am your daughter. If I am not, why am I here? Do you not remember telling me that the adoption of God meant a closer relation than any other fatherhood, even His own first fatherhood, could signify? You cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor when I am rich? You are poor: you cannot deny it," she concluded with a serious playfulness.
"I will not deny my privileges," said the schoolmaster, with a smile such as might have acknowledged the possession of some exquisite and envied rarity.
"I believe," insisted Clementina, "you are just as poor as the apostle Paul when he sat down to make a tent, or as our Lord himself after he gave up carpentering."
"You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must often have been."