d I should not change it by turning the _a_ at the close into
_ie_, as so many young people--and older ones, too, who ought to know
better--are in the habit of doing; for I never could understand why
girls with so noble names as Anna and Mary and Helen and Margaret and
Caroline should change them into the weak and silly forms that we hear
every day. This change, which usually shortens the name and ends it with
an _ie_, is called a _diminutive_, which, according to Worcester, means
"a thing little of its kind," and so may well enough be used in the
nursery; but that grown women should use it seems to me foolish and even
ignoble, and I often fear it may indicate a lack of fine sentiment. We
do not know the name of our little maiden, but we can safely imagine her
appearance for two reasons: we know her circumstances and her character.
Is it not quite sure that when Naaman selected from his captives a
little girl to wait on his wife, he would take the most beautiful one?
When we make presents to those we love, we always get the best we can.
Now we can go a step further, and ask what made her beautiful _in such a
way_ that Naaman thought she would please his wife. It must have been
her sweet and amiable expression; and that came from her character, for
nothing else can make beauty of this sort. And so we picture her with
black, wavy hair and soft, dark eyes, with red cheeks glowing through an
olive-colored skin, lips like a pomegranate, a sweet, patient, loving
expression, and a voice "gentle and low" and full of sympathy and
readiness. I am very sure about her voice and expression, because I know
her character. I never have seen any one with a loving and helpful
spirit who had not a gentle voice and a sweet expression. I think she
must have been about twelve years old; for if she had been younger she
would not have known all about Elisha, and if older she would not have
been called "a _little_ maid."

When the trouble came upon Naaman's family, she felt it grievously, and
was more attentive and gentle in her services than ever. Just here she
showed the beauty of her character. She had been cruelly wronged--stolen
away from her country and home, and made a slave without hope of ever
seeing them again--and so might naturally feel revengeful, and say that
Naaman's leprosy was a punishment for the wrong he had done her. But
instead she pitied him, and in her sympathy with his sufferings forgot
her own. So, as she brooded on the