ilar to a spring breeze,"
should "dissipate the dark night of solitude and isolation." This
despatch written in the common cant of the people, concluded with
quotations from the Prophet on brotherly love and a significant and
more sincere assurance that the Basha would not admit of excuses "of the
thickness of a hair."

When Israel received the missive, his anger was hot and furious. He
leapt to the conclusion that, in demanding the presence of Naomi, the
Spanish woman, who must know of the child's condition desired only to
make a show of it. But, after a fume, he put that thought from him as
uncharitable and unwarranted, and resolved to obey the summons.

And, indeed, if he had felt any further diffidence, the sight of Naomi's
own eagerness must have driven it away. The little maid seemed to know
that something unusual was going on. Troops of poor villagers from every
miserable quarter of the bashalic came into the town each day, beating
drums, firing long guns, driving their presents before them--bullocks,
cows, and sheep--and trying to make believe that they rejoiced and
were glad. Naomi appeared to be conscious of many tents pitched in
the marketplace, of denser crowds in the streets, and of much bustle
everywhere.

Also she seemed to catch the contagion of little Ali's excitement. The
children of all the schools of the town, both Jewish and Moorish, had
been summoned through their Talebs to the festival; there was to be
dancing and singing and playing on musical instruments and Ali himself,
who had lately practised the kanoon--the lute, the harp--under his
teacher, was to show his skill before the Governor. Therefore, great
was the little black man's excitement, and, in the fever of it, he would
talk to every one of the event forthcoming--to Fatima, to Habeebah, and
often to Naomi also, until the memory of her infirmity would come to
him, or perhaps the derisive laugh of his schoolfellows would stop him,
and then, thinking they were laughing at the girl, he would fall on them
like a fury, and they would scamper away.

When the great day came, Ali went off to the Kasbah with his school and
Taleb, in the long procession of many schools and many Talebs. Every
child carried a present for the rich Basha; now a boy with a goat, then
a girl with a lamb, again a poor tattered mite with a hen, all cuddling
them close like pets they must part with, yet all looking radiantly
happy in their sweet innocency, which had no al