p One
whom he knew not?--his blindness was inherited from his parents--he did
not wilfully turn away from the light! Oh, say that you think that the
All-merciful has had compassion on the murdered Greek! did not the Lord
spare Nineveh--pitied He not even the little ones and the cattle?"

"I do think it--I do firmly believe it," said Hadassah, raising her
eyes towards heaven; "verily the dream that visited me last night must
have been sent to assure me of this."

"Tell me your dream, mother," cried Zarah, who always addressed by this
title the parent of her father.

"Come with me into the front room, my child; leave Anna to prepare our
pottage of lentiles, and I will tell you my dream," said Hadassah,
leading the way into what might, in a European dwelling, have been
called the sitting-room. This, with the place which they had just
quitted, and two sleeping apartments above, which were reached by a
rough stair on the exterior of the dwelling, constituted all the
accommodation of Hadassah's small house, if we except the flat roof,
surrounded by a parapet, often used by the ladies as a cool and airy
retreat.

Hadassah and her grand-daughter seated themselves in a half-reclining
posture upon skins that were spread on the tiled floor; and while Zarah
listened with glistening eyes, the Hebrew widow told her dream to the
maiden.

"Methought, in the visions of the night--for I snatched a brief hour of
repose after our return from the burial--I beheld two women before me.
They were both goodly to look upon, with a strange spiritual beauty not
seen on this side of the tomb. The feet of the women rested not on the
earth, but they gently floated above it; the air seemed purpled around
them, and fragrant with the odour of myrrh. The first woman bore in
her hand a scarlet cord, the other a bundle of golden corn.

"'Hadassah,' said the first, 'I am Rahab, of the doomed race of Canaan,
yet received as a daughter of Abraham. For the sake of David, born of
my line, and for the sake of Him who was the Root of Jesse (Isa. xi.
10) and shall be the Branch (Isa. xi. 1), have pity upon the stranger.'

"And the second woman, who was exceeding fair, spoke to me in like
manner: 'Hadassah, I am Ruth, of the guilty race of Moab, yet received
as a daughter of Abraham. For the sake of David, born of my line, and
for the sake of Him who was the Root of Jesse and shall be the Branch,
have pity upon the stranger.' And so the two bright vi