bidding!  It was not the desire of Saul to deal thus with the Gibeonites, for he, the husband of a Horite, was never a fool in his wrath for his God; but Samuel, whom he dreaded more than the Philistines, bade him.  And the plague came, and they said it was from the Lord, because of these Gibeonites whom the Lord, through Samuel, had directed should be slain.  Ah me!  I, a Horite, know not the ways of Jehovah.  I sit here in Jabesh and wait till I shall be with those whom I loved, with Saul, Armoni, and his brother.  I go down into the darkness with them, but it will be better than the light.  Maybe though dark I shall see them, and be something of a queen—­I, Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, queen of the first king of Israel, he who has made it a nation.

MIRIAM’S SCHOOLING.

“He wrung the water from his dress, and, plunging into the moors, directed his course to the north-east by the assistance of the polar star.”—­The Monastery.

“That man amongst mortals who has acquiesced in Necessity is wise, and is acquainted with divine things.”—­EURIPIDES.

Giacomo Tacchi was a watchmaker in Cowfold.  He lived, not in the central square or market-place of the town, for a watchmaker’s business in Cowfold was scarcely of sufficient importance for such a position, but two or three doors round the corner.  It was in Church Street, just before the private houses begin, a little low-roofed cottage, much lower than its neighbours, for what reason nobody could tell—­much lower certainly; and yet there it was, a solid, indisputable, wedged-in assertion, not to be ousted in any way.  It had two small bow windows, one belonging to a sitting-room, and the other to the shop.  Across the curve of the shop bow window a kind of counter was fixed.  Here were Giacomo’s lamp, his glass-globe reflector, or light-condenser; here were all his tools; here lay under tumblers or wine-glasses the works of the watches on which he was operating, and here he wrought from morning to night with a lens which slipped into its place in his eye with such wonderful celerity and precision, that it was difficult to believe it had not by long acquaintance with the eye become as much a part of it as the eyelid itself.  Inside the window, along the window frames, hung perhaps twenty or thirty watches, some of which had been cleaned or repaired, and were waiting till their owners might call, whilst others had been acquired in different ways, by exchange or by purchase, and were for sale.  There were no absolutely brand new watches in the collection.  If a new watch was ordered as a wedding present or a gift to a son or daughter on the twenty-first birthday, it was specially manufactured.  Immediately to the left of Giacomo was his regulator, of which he was justly proud, for it did not vary above a minute a month.  Nevertheless its performance was checked every week by the watch