h that thou wilt be digging ere long. Most of the
wayside beggars are old men with not an eyeball left, whilst thou,
Naomi, art young, and thine eyes from without look as clear and strong
as mine. Wait until my father has taken thee to the Pool of Bethesda!
Have patience, Naomi! Thou shalt see again!"

The Bethesda Pool lay in Jerusalem on the Temple mount, a stone's throw
from the Sheep Gate of the Court of the Gentiles, where Naomi had
lingered before the sheep-pens on the afternoon that now seemed so far
away.

Perhaps in these days we should say that the great pool contained a
mineral spring, but in Naomi's time it was not doubted that an angel had
wrought the cures that were told far and wide of this "well of healing."
About it were always clustered the sick, the lame, the halt, and the
blind, in the belief that when the angel troubled the waters the first
to dip himself therein would be healed.

So Samuel the weaver purposed to take Naomi thither, and, even while
the little girl lay thinking long, long thoughts and wishing for
daybreak, the moments slipped by, the Fourth Watch or Morning came, and
Naomi's mother rose to prepare the meal so the travelers might have an
early start.

A stout little donkey, borrowed from the khan stable, carried Naomi and
her father briskly over the familiar Jerusalem highway. The little girl
remembered how happy she had been on her journey with Aunt Miriam and
how all the world had seemed gay that morning. Then she recalled the
"tap, tap, tap" of the blind men on the road, and she hid her face in
her father's cloak and trembled.

"O that the Angel of the Pool may open my eyes!" prayed Naomi. "O that
the Angel of the Pool may open my eyes!"

The Pool of Bethesda was a pretty spot. About it had been built five
porches, and in their shelter lay the sick and the withered, the lame
and the blind, waiting for a chance to push their way in the moment the
waters began to move.

When Naomi and her father arrived, the pool lay still in the sunlight,
so Samuel established himself close to the edge with his arm about
Naomi, and fell into conversation with a professional letter-writer who
sat, bearded and grave, with ink-horn fastened at his side.

"Thy little maid has felt the hand of the Lord?" queried the
letter-writer, looking compassionately at Naomi who stood picking with
nervous fingers at her father's sleeve.

Samuel nodded sadly. In a few words he told the story of Naomi's
tr