“Solomon teach me to outwit this dog.”

“Come, Mr. Levi, I have visited Mr. Meadows and now I am going to your house.”

“You shall be welcome, kindly welcome,” said the old man with large and flowing courtesy.

“And will you show me,” said Susan very tenderly, “where Leah used to sit?”

“Ah!”

“And where Rachel and Sarah loved to play?”

“Ah me!  Ah me!  Ah me!  Yes!  I could not show another these holy places, but I will show you.”

“And will you forget awhile this unhappy quarrel and listen to my words?”

“Surely I shall listen to you; for even now your voice is to my ear like the wind sighing among the cedars of Lebanon, and the wave that plays at night upon the sands of Galilee.”

“’Tis but the frail voice of a foolish woman, who loves and respects you, and yet,” said Susan, her color mantling with enthusiasm, “with it I can speak you words more beautiful than Lebanon’s cedars or Galilee’s shore.  Ay, old man, words that make the stars brighter and the sons of the morning rejoice.  I will not tell you whence I had them, but you shall say surely they never came from earth, selfish, cruel, revengeful earth, these words that drop on our hot passions like the dew, and speak of trespasses forgiven, and peace and goodwill among men.”

Oh! magic of a lovely voice speaking the truths of Heaven!  How still the room was as these goodly words rang in it from a pure heart.  Three men there had all been raging with anger and hate; now a calming music fell like oil upon these human waves, and stilled them.

The men drooped their heads, and held their breath to make sure the balmy sounds had ceased.  Then Levi answered in a tone gentle, firm, and low (very different from his last), “Susanna, bitterness fades from my heart as you speak; but experience remains.”  He turned to Meadows, “When I wander forth at Lady-day she shall still be watched over though I be far away.  My eye shall be here, and my hand shall still be so over you all,” and raising his thin hand, he held it high up, the nails pointing downward.  It looked just like a hawk hovering over its prey.  “I will say no bitterer word than that to-day;” and in fact he delivered this without apparent heat or malice.

“Come, then, with me, Susanna—­a goodly name, it comes to you from the despised people.  Come like peace to my dwelling, Susanna—­you know not this world’s wiles as I do, but you can teach me the higher wisdom that controls the folly of passion and purifies the soul.”

The pair were gone, and William and Meadows were left alone.  The latter looked sadly and gloomily at the door by which Susan had gone out.  He was in a sort of torpor.  He was not conscious of William’s presence.

Now the said William had a misgiving; in the country a man’s roof is sacred; he had affronted Meadows under his own roof, and then Mr. Levi had come and affronted him there, too.  William began to doubt whether this was not a little hard, moreover he thought he had seen Meadows brush his eye hastily with the back of his hand as Susan retired.  He came toward Meadows with his old sulky, honest, hang-the-head manner, and said, “Mr. Meadows, seems to me we have been a little hard upon you in your own house, and I am not quite easy about my share on’t.”  Meadows shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly.