younger
than herself, a delicate boy with blue pathetic eyes; and with them came
the delight of Bethany, that lovely village on the oriental slope of the
Mount of Olives, where the rich of Jerusalem had their villas, and where
her girlhood had been passed.

From the lattice at which she used to sit she could see the wide white
road begin its descent to the Jordan, a stretch of almond trees and
oleanders; and just beyond, in a woody hollow, a little house in which
Sephorah lived--a woman who came from no one knew where, and to whom Martha
had forbidden her to speak.

She could see her still, a gaunt, gray creature, with projecting
cheek-bones, a skin of brick, and a low, insinuating voice. The
fascination which she had exercised over her partook both of wonder and of
fear, for it was rumored that she was a sorceress, and as old as the
world. To Mary, who was then barely nubile, and inquisitive as only
fanciful children are, she manifested a great affection, enticing her to
her dwelling with little cakes that were sweet to the tooth and fabulous
tales that stirred the heart: the story of Stratonice and Combabus, for
instance, which Mary did not in the least understand, but which seemed to
her intensely sad.

"And then what?" she would ask when the tale was done; and the woman would
tell her of Ninus and Semiramis, of Sennachereb, of Sardanapalus,
Belsarazzur, of Dagon, the fish-god of Philistia, by whom Goliath swore
and in whose temple Samson died, or of Sargon, who, placed by his mother
in an ark of rushes, was set adrift in the Euphrates, yet, happily
discovered by a water-carrier, afterwards became a leader of men.

"Why, that was Moses!" the child would exclaim.

"No, no," the woman invariably answered, "it was Sargon."

But that which pleasured Mary more highly even than these tales were the
legends of Hither Asia, the wonderlands of Babylon, and particularly the
story of the creation, for always the human mind has wished to read the
book of God.

"Where did they say the world came from?" she would ask.

And Sephorah, drawing a long breath, would answer: "Once all was darkness
and water. In this chaos lived strange animals, and men with two wings,
and others with four wings and two faces. Some had the thighs of goats,
some had horns, and some had horses' feet, or were formed behind like a
horse and in front like a man; there were bulls with human faces, and men
with the heads of dogs, and other animals of h