Marguerite wanted to know if I were sure that the table was marble. Because, she said, our Lady was a poor woman—only imagine such a fancy!—but she insisted upon it that she had heard Father Eudes read something about it. As if the Queen of Heaven, who was, moreover, Queen of the land, could have been poor! I told Marguerite I was sure she must be mistaken, for our Lady was a Princess born. "That may be, of blood," said she; "but she was poor. Our Lord Himself, when on earth, was but a villein." I was dreadfully shocked. "O Marguerite!" I cried. "What horrible sacrilege! Art thou not afraid of the church falling on thee?" "It would not alter that if it did," said she drily. "Our Lord a villein!" exclaimed I. "How is such a thing possible? He was the King of Kings." "He is the King of Kings," said Marguerite, so reverently that I was sure she could mean no ill; "and He was of the royal blood of Monseigneur Saint David. That is the Evangel of the nobles. But He was by station a villein, and wrought as a carpenter, and had no house and no wealth. That is the Evangel of the villeins. And the villeins need their Evangel, Damoiselle; for they have nothing else." I could not tell what to answer. It is rather puzzling. I suppose it is true that our Lord was reputed the son of a carpenter; and he must have wrought as such,—Monseigneur Saint Joseph, I mean,—for the Lady de Montbeillard, who is fond of picking up relics, has a splinter of wood from a cabinet that he made. But I always thought that it was to teach religious persons[#] a lesson of humility and voluntary poverty. It could not be that He was _poor_! [#] By this term a Romanist does not mean what a Protestant does. The only "religious persons," in the eyes of the former, are priests or monks. Then our Lady,—I have seen a scrap of her tunic, and it was as fine stuff as it could be; and I have heard, though I never saw it, that her wedding-ring is set with gems. I said this to Marguerite. How could our Lady be poor? "All that may be," she replied, with quiet perverseness. "But I know, for all that, Father Eudes read that our Lord was born in a cratch, or laid in one, because there was no room in the inn. And they do not behave in that way to kings and nobles. That is the lot of the villein. And He chose the villein’s lot; and I, a villein, have been giving Him thanks for it." And nothing that I could say would disturb her calm conviction.