s among
poor, ignorant human beings, whose love for their neighbour will surely
atone in some measure for their injustice toward God.

"You see," Elisabeth continued, "there is nothing that makes you so fond
of people as being sorry for them. The people that are strong and happy
don't want your fondness, so it is no use giving it to them. It is the
weak, unhappy people that want you to love them, and so it is the weak,
unhappy people that you love."

"But I don't," replied Christopher, who was always inclined to argue a
point; "when I like people, I should like them just the same as if they
went about yelling Te Deums at the top of their voices; and when I don't
like them, it wouldn't make me like them to see them dressed from head
to foot in sackcloth and ashes."

"Oh! that's a stupid way of liking, I think."

"It may be stupid, but it's my way."

"Don't you like me better when I cry than when I laugh?" asked
Elisabeth, who never could resist a personal application.

"Good gracious, no! I always like you the same; but I'd much rather you
laughed than cried--it is so much jollier for you; in fact, it makes me
positively wretched to see you cry."

"It always vexes me," Elisabeth said thoughtfully, "to read about
tournaments, because I think it was so horrid of the Queen of Beauty to
give the prize to the knight who won."

Christopher laughed with masculine scorn. "What nonsense! Who else could
she have given it to?"

"Why, to the knight who lost, of course. I often make up a tale to
myself that I am the Queen of Beauty at a tournament; and when the
victorious knight rides up to me with his visor raised, I just laugh at
him, and say, 'You can have the fame and the glory and the cheers of the
crowd; that's quite enough for you!' And then I go down from my dais,
right into the arena where the unhorsed knight is lying wounded, and
take off his helmet, and lay his head on my lap, and say, 'You shall
have the prize, because you have got nothing else!' So then that knight
becomes my knight, and always wears my colours; and that makes up to him
for having been beaten at the tournament, don't you see?"

"It would have been a rotten sort of tournament that was carried on in
that fashion; and your prize would have been no better than a
booby-prize," persisted Christopher.

"How silly you are! I'm glad I'm not a boy; I wouldn't have been as
stupid as a boy for anything!"

"Don't be so cross! You must see that the knig