as they might with a stranger.
Ezra stopped his whispering. Naomi glanced timidly up, her head held
sideways like a little bird.

"How good Aunt Miriam is!" she mused.

But her aunt's thoughts wandered for a moment from their pious
meditations. Suddenly she loosened the veil that was pulled across her
face and spoke briefly to Naomi's mother.

"I shall come to see thee to-night after sundown. I go to Jerusalem
to-morrow, and there may be room in the cart for a certain good little
maid."

Naomi's heart leaped. Did Aunt Miriam mean her? What other little girl
might she take with her? But she had said "a good little maid," and
Naomi remembered with a pang of regret how she and Ezra had quarreled
yesterday, and had not ceased their bickering until at sunset the three
blasts of the silver trumpet, blown by the priest on the synagogue roof,
had reminded them that Sabbath eve had come.

She longed to ask outright: "Dost thou mean to take me to Jerusalem
with thee, Aunt Miriam?"

But they had reached the flat-roofed little synagogue, and once inside
the gate the children silently followed their mother and aunt into the
women's court and seated themselves on the mats that covered the stone
floor.

Naomi's mind was so occupied by the thought of a possible trip to
Jerusalem that she forgot to peep, according to her wont, through the
lattice that separated the men's court from that of the women, in the
hope of seeing her father. She usually watched with interest while the
sacred Rolls were taken from their curtained shrine, before which burned
the holy lamp, and their outer cover of gold-embroidered silk and inner
cover of linen removed.

But this morning she scarcely heard the voice of the visiting rabbi who
read the lesson for the day, and her mother was obliged to twitch her
vigorously when, during the prayers, the congregation rose to their feet
and turned toward the Holy City.

The Sabbath day seemed endless to the eager little girl. All work and
play were forbidden. No fire might be lighted, no bed made. Naomi had
been well taught in the Law. She knew that it would be sinful for her
even to carry a handkerchief tucked in her belt. And so surely not until
Sabbath was over would the trip to Jerusalem be discussed.

She sat alone in the shade of the fig-tree that grew beside their door,
and wished that she might see her friends Rachel and Rebekah to tell
them the good news. She watched the great sun flame through t