claimed Elisha to
his servant, shading his eyes from the sun with his hand, as he looked
and saw her yet afar off, riding in haste. Gehazi ran as he was told,
and when they met he asked her in an anxious voice,--

"Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with
the child?"

"It is well," she answered, for a mother's heart is strange at such a
time; and she rode forward in silence until she came to Elisha standing
at his house door. Getting off the ass, she threw herself down before
the prophet, and holding his feet, lay there with her face to the
ground, saying nothing.

Gehazi came forward to raise her.

"Let her alone," Elisha said, looking at the grief-stricken figure at
his feet. "Her soul is vexed within her, and God hath hid the matter
from me, and hath not told me."

When she heard these words she found her voice, and murmured, with her
face to the ground,--

"Did I ask a son of my lord? and did I not say, 'Do not deceive me'?"
Then her tears fell fast. Elisha understood her at once.

"Gird up thy tunic with thy belt," he said, speaking to Gehazi, "and
take my staff, and go. Greet no man by the way, and answer no man's
greeting; but lay it on the face of the child," handing him his staff
as he spoke. And the man started at once to run down the path from the
village.

"As God liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee," the
mother murmured at the prophet's feet.

She would not be content with a servant; she must have the prophet
himself. And when she rode away Elisha was with her, going back again
on the long ride of sixteen miles which she had scarcely noticed, so
loving was her mother's heart.

When they drew near the village of Shunem, Gehazi came out to meet them.

"The child is not awake," he said; but he got no answer.

Elisha went up alone to the little chamber, and there lay the beautiful
child, still and quiet upon the bed. And the old man shut the door and
prayed to God for him, and stretched himself upon the child, hand to
hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, until the child grew warm, and
showing signs of life, opened his eyes. Then the prophet called to his
servant to bring the Shunammite woman. She needed no calling. Her
foot was on the stair while he yet spoke, so quick is a mother's heart,
and she stood at the door of the little room, as she had often stood
before, gazing, but afraid to enter.

"Take up thy son," the prophet said.

A glanc