ending not to hear what he heard. But every day his heart bled
at sight of her, and one day he could bear up no longer, for his very
soul had sickened, and he cried, "Have done, Ruth!--for mercy's sake,
have done! The child is a soul in chains, and a spirit in prison. Her
eyes are darkness, like the tomb's, and her ears are silence, like the
grave's. Never will she smile to her mother's smile, or answer to her
father's speech. The first sound she will hear will be the last trump,
and the first face she will see will be the face of God."

At that, Ruth flung herself down and burst into a flood of tears.
The hope that she had cherished was dead. Israel could comfort her no
longer. The fountain of his own heart was dry. He drew a long breath,
and went away to his bad work at the Kasbah.

The child lived and thrived. They had called her Naomi, as they had
agreed to do before she was born, though no name she knew of herself,
and a mockery it seemed to name her. At four years of age she was
a creature of the most delicate beauty. Notwithstanding her Jewish
parentage, she was fair as the day and fresh as the dawn. And if her
eyes were darkness, there was light within her soul; and if her ears
were silence, there was music within her heart. She was brighter than
the sun which she could not see, and sweeter than the songs which she
could not hear. She was joyous as a bird in its narrow cage, and never
did she fret at the bars which bound her. And, like the bird that sings
at midnight, her cheery soul sang in its darkness.

Only one sound seemed ever to come from her little lips, and it was the
sound of laughter. With this she lay down to sleep at night, and rose
again in the morning. She laughed as she combed her hair, and laughed
again as she came dancing out of her chamber at dawn.

She had only one sentinel on the outpost of her spirit, and that was the
sense of touch and feeling. With this she seemed to know the day from
the night, and when the sun was shining and when the sky was dark. She
knew her mother, too, by the touch of her fingers, and her father by
the brushing of his beard. She knew the flowers that grew in the fields
outside the gate of the town, and she would gather them in her lap,
as other children did, and bring them home with her in her hands. She
seemed almost to know their colours also, for the flowers which she
would twine in her hair were red, and the white were those which she
would lay on her bosom.