Sometimes, if she found a case of anything like oppression, she interfered.

Sometimes, and this was what more often happened, she helped some poor man with money--in order that he might be able to pay his rent to herself.

Bianca laughed once at a charity of this kind, but Veronica held her own.
"The rule is for everybody," she said.

"They must pay their rents, or go.

If I choose to help those who have had trouble, that is my affair, and not the business of the under-steward with whom they have to do.
Besides, if the rent is remitted this year, they will expect the same thing in the future, whereas they know that a little money is a passing charity on which they cannot count with certainty.