ream, coming of the
passage which he had read out of the book at sundown, but so vivid was
the sense of it that he could not rest in his bed until he had first
seen Naomi with his waking eyes, that he might laugh in his heart to
think how the eye of his sleep had fooled him. So he lit his lamp, and
walked through the silent house to where Naomi's room was on the lower
floor of it.

There she lay, sleeping so peacefully, with her sunny hair flowing over
the pillow on either side of her beautiful face, and rippling in little
curls about her neck. How sweet she looked! How like a dear bud of
womanhood just opening to the eye!

Israel sat down beside her for a moment. Many a time before, at such
hours, he had sat in that same place, and then gone his ways, and she
had known nothing of it. She was like any other maiden now. Her eyes
were closed, and who should see that they were blind? Her breath came
gently, and who should say that it gave forth no speech? Her face was
quiet, and who should think that it was not the face of a homely-hearted
girl? Israel loved these moments when he was alone with Naomi while she
slept, for then only did she seem to be entirely his own, and he was not
so lonely while he was sitting there. Though men thought he was strong,
yet he was very weak. He had no one in the world to talk to save Naomi,
and she was dumb in the daytime, but in the night he could hold little
conversations with her. His love! his dove! his darling! How easily he
could trick and deceive himself and think, She will awake presently, and
speak to me! Yes; her eyes will open and see me here again, and I
shall hear her voice, for I love it! "Father!" she will say.
"Father--father--"

Only the moment of undeceiving was so cruel!

Naomi stirred, and Israel rose and left her. As he went back to his bed,
through the corridor of the patio, he heard a night-cry behind him that
made his hair to rise. It was Naomi laughing in her sleep.

Israel dreamt again that night, and he believed his second dream to be a
vision. It was only a dream, like the first; but what his dream would be
to us is nought, and what it was to him is everything. The vision as he
thought he saw it was this, and these were the words of it as he thought
he heard them--

It was the middle of the night, and he was lying in his own room, when
a dull red light as of dying flame crossed the foot of the bed, and a
voice that was as the voice of the Lord came out of