"Because it won't make things any better. There will be just as much
hunger. It's only shifting it from me to you. That will leave it all
the same!"

"No, not the same," she returned. "I've had a good dinner--as much as
I could eat; and you've had none!"

Clare was persuaded, and ate the girl's bun with much satisfaction and
gratitude.

When he had his wages in the evening, he spent them as before--a penny
for the baby, and fivepence at Mr. Ball's for Tommy, Abdiel, and
himself.

Observing that he came daily, and spent all he earned, except one
penny, on bread; seeing also that the boy's cheeks, though plainly he
was in good health, were very thin, Mr. Ball wondered a little: a boy
ought to look better than that on five pennyworth of bread a day!

They were a curious family--Clare, and Tommy, and the baby, and
Abdiel. But the only thing sad about it was, that Clare, who was the
head and the heart of it, and provided for all, should be upheld by no
human sympathy, no human gratitude; that he should be so high above
his companions that, though he never thought he was lonely, he could
not help feeling lonely. Not once did he wish himself rid of any
single member of his adopted family. It was living on his very body;
he was growing a little thinner every day; if things had gone on so,
he must before long have fallen ill; but he never thought of himself
at all, body or soul.