as far as the eye could see, and the thought came to him that this ashen desert was the earth itself, and that all the world of life and man was dead.  Then, suddenly, in the motionless wilderness, a solitary creature moved.  It was a goat, and it toiled over the hot sand with its head hung down and its tongue lolled out.  “Water!” it seemed to cry, though it made no voice, and its eyes traversed the plain as if they would pierce the ground for a spring.  Fever and delirium fell upon Israel.  The goat came near to him and lifted up its eyes, and he saw its face.  Then he shrieked and awoke.  The face of the goat had been the face of Naomi.

Now Israel knew that this was no more than a dream, coming of the passage which he had read out of the book at sundown, but so vivid was the sense of it that he could not rest in his bed until he had first seen Naomi with his waking eyes, that he might laugh in his heart to think how the eye of his sleep had fooled him.  So he lit his lamp, and walked through the silent house to where Naomi’s room was on the lower floor of it.

There she lay, sleeping so peacefully, with her sunny hair flowing over the pillow on either side of her beautiful face, and rippling in little curls about her neck.  How sweet she looked!  How like a dear bud of womanhood just opening to the eye!

Israel sat down beside her for a moment.  Many a time before, at such hours, he had sat in that same place, and then gone his ways, and she had known nothing of it.  She was like any other maiden now.  Her eyes were closed, and who should see that they were blind?  Her breath came gently, and who should say that it gave forth no speech?  Her face was quiet, and who should think that it was not the face of a homely-hearted girl?  Israel loved these moments when he was alone with Naomi while she slept, for then only did she seem to be entirely his own, and he was not so lonely while he was sitting there.  Though men thought he was strong, yet he was very weak.  He had no one in the world to talk to save Naomi, and she was dumb in the daytime, but in the night he could hold little conversations with her.  His love! his dove! his darling!  How easily he could trick and deceive himself and think, She will awake presently, and speak to me!  Yes; her eyes will open and see me here again, and I shall hear her voice, for I love it!  “Father!” she will say.  “Father—­father—­”

Only the moment of undeceiving was so cruel!

Naomi stirred, and Israel rose and left her.  As he went back to his bed, through the corridor of the patio, he heard a night-cry behind him that made his hair to rise.  It was Naomi laughing in her sleep.

Israel dreamt again that night, and he believed his second dream to be a vision.  It was only a dream, like the first; but what his dream would be to us is nought, and what it was to him is everything.  The vision as he thought he saw it was this, and these were the words of it as he thought he heard them—­