have told which was mother, which daughter; both alike seemed
witch-like old.

"Hist!" said the mother. "There is some one lying upon the step--a
man. Let us go round him."

They crossed to the opposite side of the street quickly, and,
in the shade there, moved on till before the gate, where they
stopped.

"He is asleep, Tirzah!"

The man was very still.

"Stay here, and I will try the gate."

So saying, the mother stole noiselessly across, and ventured to
touch the wicket; she never knew if it yielded, for that moment
the man sighed, and, turning restlessly, shifted the handkerchief
on his head in such manner that the face was left upturned and
fair in the broad moonlight. She looked down at it and started;
then looked again, stooping a little, and arose and clasped her
hands and raised her eyes to heaven in mute appeal. An instant so,
and she ran back to Tirzah.

"As the Lord liveth, the man is my son--thy brother!" she said,
in an awe-inspiring whisper.

"My brother?--Judah?"

The mother caught her hand eagerly.

"Come!" she said, in the same enforced whisper, "let us look at
him together--once more--only once--then help thou thy servants,
Lord!"

They crossed the street hand in hand ghostly-quick, ghostly-still.
When their shadows fell upon him, they stopped. One of his hands was
lying out upon the step palm up. Tirzah fell upon her knees, and would
have kissed it; but the mother drew her back.

"Not for thy life; not for thy life! Unclean, unclean!" she whispered.

Tirzah shrank from him, as if he were the leprous one.

Ben-Hur was handsome as the manly are. His cheeks and forehead
were swarthy from exposure to the desert sun and air; yet under
the light mustache the lips were red, and the teeth shone white,
and the soft beard did not hide the full roundness of chin and
throat. How beautiful he appeared to the mother's eyes! How mightily
she yearned to put her arms about him, and take his head upon her
bosom and kiss him, as had been her wont in his happy childhood!
Where got she the strength to resist the impulse? From her love,
O, reader!--her mother-love, which, if thou wilt observe well,
hath this unlikeness to any other love: tender to the object,
it can be infinitely tyrannical to itself, and thence all its
power of self-sacrifice. Not for restoration to health and fortune,
not for any blessing of life, not for life itself, would she have
left her leprous kiss upon his cheek! Yet touch h