an't well help it. You must
teach me how to become poor. Tell me true: how much money have you?" She
said this with such an earnest look of simple love that the schoolmaster
made haste to rise that he might conceal his growing emotion.

"Rise, my dear lady," he said as he rose himself, "and I will show you."
He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and disappointed, and
so stood looking after him while he went to a drawer. Thence, searching
in a corner of it, he brought a half-sovereign, a few shillings and some
coppers, and held them out to her on his hand with the smile of one who
has proved his point. "There!" he said, "do you think Paul would have
stopped preaching to make a tent so long as he had as much as that in
his pocket? I shall have more on Saturday, and I always carry a month's
rent in my good old watch, for which I never had much use, and now have
less than ever."

Clementina had been struggling with herself: now she burst into tears.

"Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!" exclaimed the
schoolmaster. "Do you think because a man has not a gold-mine he must
die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a worm left for
the morrow, and died a happy death notwithstanding." As he spoke he took
her handkerchief from her hand and dried her tears with it. But he had
enough ado to keep his own back. "Because I won't take a bagful of gold
from you when I don't want it," he went on, "do you think I should let
myself starve without coming to you? I promise you I will let you
know--come to you if I can--the moment I get too hungry to do my work
well and have no money left. Should I think it a disgrace to take money
from _you_? That would show a poverty of spirit such as I hope never to
fall into. My _sole_ reason for refusing now is that I do not need it."

But for all his loving words and assurances Clementina could not stay
her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes were as a
fountain.

"See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter," he said, "I
will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has flown from me ere
you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will not return if once I let
it go, I will ask you for another. It _may_ be God's will that you
should feed me for a time."

"Like one of Elijah's ravens," said Clementina, with an attempted laugh
that was really a sob.

"Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver and her feathers with
yellow gold,"