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"Adam pays you this well?" asked Jerome, incredulously. "He's a bigger fool than I thought he was-- if that's possible."

"I worked for it," insisted Charlie.

"Not four hundred a month," sneered Jerome, putting the money in his desk drawer. "You're almost a taxpayer," he observed.

"By the end of the year, I'll be paying taxes," replied Charlie, turning to go. "It turns out, I qualify."

Satisfied that she had accomplished what she set out to do, Charlie returned home. Now, Jerome could no longer say that they weren't lifting a finger to help with the expenses. She could still see Jerome's amazed face when she handed him the money. It was a moment she was sure she would never forget.

Even if Jerome wasn't so cheap, Charlie reasoned that the financial contribution was owed her uncle-- unsympathetic though he may be. After all, Jerome was paying for things that her father could not possibly afford-- her private education for one. It reminded Charlie of the Scripture, "Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." That night, she fell asleep a poorer, but happier young woman.

"Better is the poor [Charlie] that walketh in [her] integrity, than he [Jerome] that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool."
~ Proverbs 19:1 ~

"That at that time ye [Jessica] were without Christ... and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."
~ Ephesians 2:12 ~

"Being confident of this very thing, that He [God] which hath begun a good work in you [Jessica] WILL perform it."
~ Philippians 1:6 ~

end of chapter

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