a poor creature who is ill-fed and always engaged in service, pride which
is the prescriptive right only of those, whom privilege raises above the
common herd around them?--But this girl, you may take my word for it, has
ample reason to hold her head high, not only because she is the daughter
of free and noble parents and is distinguished by rare beauty, not
because while she was still a child she undertook, with the devotion
and constancy of the best of mothers, the care of another child--her
own sister, but for a reason which, if I judge you rightly, you will
understand better than many another young man; because she must uphold
her pride in order that among the lower servants with whom unfortunately
she is forced to work, she may never forget that she is a free and noble
lady. You can set your pride aside and yet remain what you are, but if
she were to do so and to learn to feel as a servant, she would presently
become in fact what by nature she is not and by circumstances is
compelled to be. A fine horse made to carry burdens becomes a mere cart-
horse as soon as it ceases to hold up its head and lift its feet freely.
Klea is proud because she must be proud; and if you are just you will not
contemn the girl, who perhaps has cast a kindly glance at you--since the
gods have so made you that you cannot fail to please any woman--and yet
who must repel your approaches because she feels herself above being
trifled with, even by one of the Cornelia gens, and yet too lowly to dare
to hope that a man like you should ever stoop from your height to desire
her for a wife. She has vexed you, of that there can be no doubt; how,
I can only guess. If, however, it has been through her repellent pride,
that ought not to hurt you, for a woman is like a soldier, who only puts
on his armor when he is threatened by an opponent whose weapons he
fears."

The recluse had rather whispered than spoken these words, remembering
that he had neighbors; and as he ceased the drops stood on his brow, for