in thought, and again she closed her eyes
and touched the familiar things wherein her sight had deceived her.
"Ah yes," she said meekly, looking into her father's eye, with a smile,
"they are only that after all." And then she said very quietly, as if
speaking to herself, "What a long time it is before you learn to see!"

It was partly due to the isolation of her upbringing in the company of
Israel that nearly every fresh wonder that encountered her eyes took
shapes of supernatural horror or splendour. One early evening, when she
had remained out of the house until the day was well-nigh done, she came
back in a wild ecstasy to tell of angels that she had just seen in the
sky. They were in robes of crimson and scarlet, their wings blazed like
fire, they swept across the clouds in multitudes, and went down behind
the world together, passing out of the earth through the gates of
heaven.

Israel listened to her and said, "That was the sunset my child. Every
morning the sun rises and every night it sets."

Then she looked full into his face and blushed. Her shame at her sweet
errors sometimes conquered her joy in the new heritage of sight, and
Israel heard her whisper to herself and say, "After all, the eyes are
deceitful." Vision was life's new language, and she had yet to learn it.

But not for long was her delight in the beautiful things of the world
to be damped by any thought of herself. Nay, the best and rarest part of
it, the dearest and most delicious throb it brought her, came of herself
alone. On another early day Israel took her to the coast, and pushed off
with her on the waters in a boat. The air was still, the sea was smooth,
the sun was shining, and save for one white scarf of cloud the sky
was blue. They were sailing in a tiny bay that was broken by a little
island, which lay in the midst like a ruby in a ring, covered with
heather and long stalks of seeding grass. Through whispering beds of
rushes they glided on, and floated over banks of coral where gleaming
fishes were at play. Sea-fowl screamed over their heads, as if in anger
at their invasion, and under their oars the moss lay in the shallows on
the pebbles and great stones. It was a morning of God's own making, and,
for joy of its loveliness no less than of her own bounding life, Naomi
rose in the boat and opened her lips and arms to the breeze while it
played with the rippling currents of her hair, as if she would drink and
embrace it.

At that m