neighbours,
and when he died his house had been left alone. That was the chance
whereby Israel and Naomi had come to possess it, being both poor and
unclaimed.

Nevertheless, though bare enough of most things that man makes and
values, yet the little place was rich in some of the wealth that comes
only from the hand of God. Thus marjoram and jasmine and pinks and roses
grew at the foot of its walls, and it was these sweet flowers which had
first caught the eyes of Israel. For suddenly through the mazes of his
mind, where every perception was indistinct at that time, there seemed
to come back to him a vague and confused recollection of the abandoned
house, as if the thing that his eyes then saw they had surely seen
before. How this should be Israel could not tell, seeing that never
before to his knowledge had he passed on his way to Tangier so near to
Semsa. But when he questioned himself again, it came to him, like light
beaming into a dark room, that not in any waking hour at all had he seen
the little place before, but in a dream of the night when he slept on
the ground in the poor fondak of the Jews at Wazzan.

This, then, was the cottage where he had dreamed that he lived with
Naomi; this was where she had seemed to have eyes to see and ears to
hear and a tongue to speak; this was the vision of his dead wife, which
when he awoke on his journey had appeared to be vainly reflected in
his dream; and now it was realised, it was true, it had come to pass.
Israel's heart was full, and being at that time ready to see the leading
of Heaven in everything, he saw it in this fact also; and thus, without
more ado than such inquiries as were necessary, he settled himself with
Naomi in the place they had chanced upon.

And there, through some months following, from the height of the summer
until the falling of winter, they lived together in peace and content,
lacking much, yet wanting nothing; short of many things that are thought
to make men's condition happy, but grateful and thanking God.

Israel was poor, but not penniless. Out of the wreck of his fortune,
after he sold the best contents of his house, he had still some three
hundred dollars remaining in the pocket of his waistband when he was
cast out of the town. These he laid out in sheep and goats and oxen. He
hired land also of a tenant of the Basha, and sent wool and milk by the
hand of a neighbour to the market at Tetuan. The rains continued, the
eggs of the locust