ears,
but, alas! what words could she understand any more than the wind which
moaned about the house and the thunder which rolled overhead? And again
and again, alas! as surely as he spoke to her she must shrink from the
solace of his voice even as she shrank from the tumult of the voices of
the storm.

Israel fell back helpless and heartbroken. He began to see in its
fulness the change which had befallen Naomi, yet not at once to realise
it, so sudden and so numbing was the stroke. He began to know that with
the mighty blessing for which he had hoped and prayed--the blessing of a
pathway to his daughter's soul--a misfortune had come as well. What was
it to him now that Naomi had ears to hear if she could not understand?
And what was this tempest to the maiden new-born out of the land of
silence into the world of sound, yet still both blind and dumb, but
a circle of darkness alive with creatures that groaned and cried and
shrieked and moved around her?

Thus nothing could Israel do but watch the creeping of Naomi's terror,
and smooth her forehead and chafe her hands. And this he did, until at
length, in a fresh outbreak of the storm, when the vault of the heavens
seemed rent asunder, a strong delirium took hold of her, and she fell
into a long unconsciousness. Then Israel held back his heart no longer,
but wept above her, and called to her, and cried aloud upon her name--

"Naomi! Naomi! My poor child! My dearest! Hear me! It is nothing!
nothing! Listen! It is gone! Gone!"

With such passionate cries of love and sorrow; Israel gave vent to his
soul in its trouble. And while Naomi lay in her unconsciousness, he knew
not what feelings possessed him, for his heart was in a great turmoil.
Desolate! desolate! All was desolate! His high-built hopes were in
ashes!

Sometimes he remembered the days when the child knew no sorrow, and when
grief came not near her, when she was brighter than the sun which she
could not see and sweeter than the songs which she could not hear, when
she was joyous as a bird in its narrow cage and fretted not at the
bars which bound her, when she laughed as she braided her hair and came
dancing out of her chamber at dawn. And remembering this, he looked down
at her knitted face, and his heart grew bitter, and he lifted up his
voice through the tumult of the storm, and cried again on the God of
Jacob, and rebuked Him for the marvellous work which He had wrought.

If God were an almighty God, su