to them. There are many poor girls who go hungry and cold and keep
from harm.

_Clorinde_--Child, their courage is sublime. Honor them if you will, but
pity the cowards.

_Célie_--Yes, for choosing infamy rather than work, hunger, or death!
Yes, for losing the respect of all honest souls! Yes, I can pity them
for not being worthier of pity.

_Clorinde_--So that's your Christian charity! So nothing in the
world--bitter repentance or agonies of suffering, or vows of sanctity
for all time to come--may obliterate the past?

_Célie_--You force me to speak without knowledge. But--since I must give
judgment--who really hates a fault will hate the fruit of it. If you
keep this place, Madame, you will not expect me to believe in the
genuineness of your renunciations.

_Clorinde_--I do not dishonor it. There is no reason why I should leave
it. I have already proved my sincerity by high-minded and generous acts.
I bear myself as my place demands. My conscience is at rest.

_Célie_--Your good action--for I believe you--is only the beginning of
expiation. Virtue seems to me like a holy temple. You may leave it by a
door with a single step, but to enter again you must climb up a hundred
on your knees, beating your breast.

_Clorinde_--How rigid you all are, and how your parents train their
first-born never to open the ranks! Oh, fortunate race! impenetrable