h. They never saw him but reclining on the floor.
He feared that measures might be taken to clip the wings of the bird if
it were once guessed how nearly those wings were fledged.

The day before the celebration of the great feast of the Passover,
Hadassah was far from well. Whether her illness arose from the state
of the weather, for the month of Nisan was this year more than usually
hot, or the effect of long fastings and prayer upon a frame enfeebled
by age, or whether from secret grief preying on her health, Zarah knew
not,--perhaps from all these causes combined. The maiden grew uneasy
about her grandmother, and redoubled her tender ministrations to her
comfort.

On the day mentioned, Anna had gone into Jerusalem to dispose of flax
spun by the Hebrew ladies, and procure a few necessary articles of
food. Hadassah never suffered her beautiful girl to enter to walls of
the city, nor, indeed, ever to quit the precincts of her home, save
when on Sabbath-days and feast-days she went, closely veiled, to the
dwelling of the elder Salathiel, about half a mile distant from that of
Hadassah, to join in social worship. Hadassah with jealous care
shrouded her white dove from the gaze of Syrian eyes.

The aged lady had passed a very restless night. With thrilling
interest Zarah had heard her moaning in her sleep, "Abner! my son! my
poor lost son!" The sealed lips were opened, when the mind had no
longer power to control their utterance. Hadassah awoke in the morning
feverish and ill. She made a vain attempt to rise and pursue her usual
avocations. Zarah entreated her to lie still. For hours the widow lay
stretched on a mat with her eyes half closed, while Zarah watched
beside her, fanning her feverish brow.

"Let me prepare for you a cooling drink, dear mother," said the maiden
at last, rising and going to the water-jar, which stood in a corner of
the apartment. "Alas! it is empty. Anna forgot to replenish it from
the spring ere she set out for the city. I will go and fill it myself."

Zarah lifted up the jar, and poising it on her head, lightly descended
the rough steps of the outer stair, and proceeded to the spring at the
back of the house. The spring was surrounded by oleanders, which at
this time of the year in Palestine are robed in their richest bloom.
But the season had been singularly hot and dry, the latter rains had
not yet fallen, and the spring was beginning to fail. Zarah placed her
jar beneath