the light of her eyes, and if she felt pain he must have seen it, and if she had found pleasure he must have known it, and what man is, and what woman is, and what the world and what the sea and what the sky, would have been as an open book for her to read.  But, being blind and deaf together, and, by fault of being deaf, being dumb as well, what word was to describe the desolation of her state, the blank void of her isolation—­cut off, apart, aloof, shut in, imprisoned, enchained, a soul without communion with other souls:  alive, and yet dead?

Thus, realising Naomi’s condition in; the deep infirmity of her nature, Israel set himself to consider how he could reach her darkened and silent soul.  And first he tried to learn what good gifts were left to her, that he might foster them to her advantage and nourish them to his own great comfort and joy.  Yet no gift whatever could he find in her but the one gift only whereof he had known from the beginning—­the gift of touch and feeling.  With this he must make her to see, or else her light should always be darkness, and with this he must make her to hear, or silence should be her speech for ever.

Then he remembered that during his years in England he had heard strange stories of how the dumb had been made to speak though they could not hear, and the blind and deaf to understand and to answer.  So he sent to England for many books written on the treatment of these children of affliction, and when they were come he pondered them closely and was thrilled by the marvellous works they described.  But when he came to practise the precepts they had given him, his spirits flagged, for the impediments were great.  Time after time he tried, and failed always, to touch by so much as one shaft of light the hidden soul of the child through its tenement of flesh and blood.  Neither the simplest thought nor the poorest element of an idea found any way to her mind, so dense were the walls of the prison that encompassed it.  “Yes” was a mystery that could not at first be revealed to her, and “No” was a problem beyond her power to apprehend.  Smiles and frowns were useless to teach her.  No discipline could be addressed to her mind or heart.  Except mere bodily restraint, no control could be imposed upon her.  She was swayed by her impulses alone.

Israel did not despair.  If he was broken down today he strengthened his hands for tomorrow.  At length he had got so far, after a world of toil and thought, that Naomi knew when he patted her head that it was for approval, and when he touched her hand it was for assent.  Then he stopped very suddenly.  His hope had not drooped, and neither had his energy failed, but the conviction had fastened upon him that such effort in his case must be an offence against Heaven.  Naomi was not merely an infirm creature from the left hand of Nature; she was an afflicted being from the right hand of God.  She was a living monument of sin that was not her own.  It was useless to go farther.  The child must be left where God had placed her.