When the old dame heard the messengers boast that the fair future promised to the people was now close at hand, her eyes often sought her husband, and she exclaimed:  “Yes, Moses!” for she held her son-in-law’s brother in high esteem, and rejoiced to see his prophecy fulfilled.  The old people were proud of Aaron, too; but all their love was lavished upon Eleasar, their grandson, whom they beheld growing up into a second Moses.  Miriam had been for some time a new and welcome member of the household.  True, the warm-hearted old couple’s liking for the grave maiden had not increased to parental tenderness, and their daughter Elisheba, Aaron’s active wife, had no greater inclination to share the cares of the large family with the prophetess than her son Naashon’s spouse, who, moreover, dwelt with her immediate family under her own roof.  Yet the old people owed Miriam a debt of gratitude for the care she bestowed upon their granddaughter Milcah, the daughter of Aaron and Elisheba, whom a great misfortune had transformed from a merry-hearted child into a melancholy woman, whose heart seemed dead to every joy.

A few days after her marriage to a beloved husband the latter, carried away by passion, had raised his hand against an Egyptian tax-gatherer, who, while Pharaoh was passing through Succoth toward the east, had attempted to drive off a herd of his finest cattle for “the kitchen of the lord of both worlds.”  For this act of self-defence the hapless man had been conveyed to the mines as a prisoner of state, and every one knew that the convicts there perished, soul and body, from torturing labor far beyond their strength.  Through the influence of old Nun, Hosea’s father, the wife and relatives of the condemned man had been saved from sharing his punishment, as the law prescribed.  But Milcah languished under the blow, and the only person who could rouse the pale, silent woman from brooding over her grief was Miriam.  The desolate heart clung to the prophetess, and she accompanied her when she practised in the huts of the poor the medical skill she had learned and took them medicines and alms.

The last messengers Amninadab and his wife received on the roof described the hardships of the journey and the misery they had witnessed in dark hues; but if one, more tender-hearted than the rest, broke into lamentations over the sufferings endured by the women and children during the prevalence of the desert wind, and recalling the worst horrors impressed upon his memory, uttered mournful predictions for the future, the old man spoke cheering words, telling him of the omnipotence of God, and how custom would inure one to hardship.  His wrinkled features expressed firm confidence, while one could read in Miriam’s beautiful, yet stern countenance, little of the courageous hope, which youth is wont to possess in a far higher degree than age.