"Not that I know of," sighed the witch. "Sarah Brown, how long do you
want me to keep quiet, while you say things that everybody surely
knows?"

But Sarah Brown went on. "The real Love knows her neighbour face to
face, and laughs with him and weeps with him, and eats and drinks with
him, so that at last, when his black day dawns, she may share with him,
not what she can spare, but all that she has."

The Dog David grunted a little, by way of rather dubious applause. Sarah
Brown, with her own voice printed loud and stark upon the retina of her
hearing, felt a little abashed. But presently she added in a whisper:
"Listen. I am a spy. I am a lover of specially recommended neighbours
only. I am here to help to give the black cloud Tyranny a rather dirty
silver lining. I am the False Steward, in the interest of the
Superfluously Comfortable. My Masters sit upon the King's Highway,
taking toll in bitterness and humiliation from every traveller along
that road. For surely comfort is every man's heritage, surely the happy
years should come to every man--not doled out, not meanly dependent on
his moral orthodoxy, but as his right. The fat philanthropist is a
debtor, but he behaves like a creditor; he distributes obligations with
his gold, yet he has no right to the gold he gives. He makes his brother
beg upon his knees for the life and the health and the dear opportunity
that should have been that brother's birthright."

"You are possessed, dear Sarah Brown," said the witch. "Don't be
frightened, it will soon pass off. I knew a girl who had an attack very
much like this; while she was under its influence she made up a psalm
pretty nearly as good as one of David's. Her mother was much alarmed