in the desert; and, overjoyed, Dan wondered how it was that he could have refrained so long.  It was concerning a certain falling off in an order:  if Master Joseph were to go on a circuit through the Greek cities—­Dan could have thrown his arms about his clerk for these words, but it were better to dissimulate.  You think then that Joseph understands the business sufficiently?  The clerk acquiesced, and it was a great day, of course, the day Joseph went forth; and in a few weeks Dan had proof that his confidence in his son’s business aptitudes was not misplaced.  Joseph showed himself to be suited to the enterprise by his engaging manner as well as by his knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, the two languages procuring him an admission into the confidences of Jew and Gentile alike.

The length of these excursions was from three to four weeks, and when Joseph returned home for an interval his parents disputed as to whether he should spend his holiday in the counting-house or the dwelling-house.  So to avoid giving offence to either, and for his own pleasure Joseph often spent these days on the boats with the fishers, learning their craft from them, losing himself often in meditations how the draught of fishes might be increased by a superior kind of net:  interested in his trade far too much, Rachel said.  His mind seemed bent on it always; whereas she would have liked to have heard him tell of all the countries he had been to and of all the people he had seen, but it was always about salt fish that he was talking:  how many barrels had gone to this town, and how many barrels to another, and the new opening he had discovered for salt fish in a village the name of which he had never heard before.

Rachel’s patience with Joseph was long but at last she lost patience and said she would be glad when the last barrel of salt fish came out of the lake, for it would not be till then that they would have time to live their lives in peace and comfort.  She gathered up her knitting and was going to bed, but Joseph would not suffer her to go.  He said he had stories to tell her, and he fell to telling of the several preachers he had heard in the synagogues, and his voice beguiled the evening away so pleasantly that Rachel let her knitting drop into her lap and sat looking at her grandson, stupefied and transported with love.

Dan’s love for his son was more tender in these days than it had ever been before, but Rachel looked back, thinking the old days were better, when Joseph used to come from Azariah’s talking about his studies.  It may be that Dan, forgetful of his jealousy, looked back to those days gone over with a certain wistfulness.  A boy is, if not more interesting, at least more unexpected, than a young man.  In the old days Dan did not know what sort of son God had given him, but now he knew that God had given him the son he always desired, and that Azariah’s tending of the boy’s character had been kind, wise and salutary, as the flower and fruit showed.